Presentation shown on the PrioRE'17 workshop, which is part of the 1st International Workshop on Requirements Prioritization and Enactment (27/02/2017-02/03/2017, Essen, Germany)

1. State of the Practice on
Software Release Planning

2. 2
Outline
• Software Release Planning (SRP)
• Current state of the practice
• Selection of tools
• Observations
StateofthepracticeinSRP

3. 3
What is SRP?StateofthepracticeinSRP

4. 4
Current state of SRP
• State of the art
 Update of Svahnberg’s SLR (2010)
• cf. Ameller et al. at PROFES 2016
 Only one tool found beyond proof-of-concept state
• State of the practice
 This paper
 Analysis of project management tools available in
the IT market
StateofthepracticeinSRP
What kind of AI-assisted feature release planning and /
or task scheduling capabilities are supported by project
management tools currently available in the market?

5. 5
Selection of toolsStateofthepracticeinSRP
Wikipedia PMT
119 tools
Vendor website
analysis
11 tools
Include tools not in alpha version with
last release newer than 18 months
Collect classification data (scheduling
facilities, web tool vs. desktop, …
RQ1-based indi-
vidual analysis
7 tools
Exclusion criteria: low maturity; poor
functionality; not automated project
planning methods and algorithms

6. 6
Selected toolsStateofthepracticeinSRP
Tool Task scheduling
Workfront Soft constraint-based task scheduling
Genius Project Simulation capabilities
Oracle Primavera Critical path scheduling
LibrePlan Queue-based (automated) resource planning
Sciforma Critical chain scheduling
JIRA Automated scheduling of tasks – plug-ins
Microsoft Project Automated scheduling of tasks

7. 7
Example of detailStateofthepracticeinSRP
Attribute Data
URL http://www.geniusproject.com/
Current version V8.0
Last release date September 2015
Key features and
scheduling support
Calendar, Cross Project Dependencies, Gantt Charts,
Project Hierarchy, Add Recurring Tasks, Assign
Stakeholders, Set Priorities, Task History, To-Do List
Agile support Burndown Charts, Card View, Cycle Time Analytics,
Kanban, Manage Product Backlog, Scrum Methodology,
Version Control
Web-based support Cloud delivery and on-premise
Price From 19.95 USD month
Simulation
capabilities
- Run resource allocation and planning scenarios in an
interactive Gantt chart
- Generate unlimited scenarios to compare to your
original project
- Graphically compare differences in metrics such as
time to completion, staffing, costs, etc.

8. 8
Selected toolsStateofthepracticeinSRP
Tool Task scheduling
Workfront Soft constraint-based task scheduling
Genius Project Simulation capabilities
Oracle Primavera Critical path scheduling
LibrePlan Queue-based (automated) resource planning
Sciforma Critical chain scheduling
JIRA Automated scheduling of tasks
Microsoft Project Automated scheduling of tasks
• Common characteristics
 Support for project managers at the start of a
project or spring
 Do not go back to the planning chain
 Do not adapt dynamically as the project/spring goes

9. 9
Threats to validityStateofthepracticeinSRP
• Not all tools found
• Not all features probed
• Tools other than project management tools
could incorporate SRP features

10. 10
ObservationsStateofthepracticeinSRP
• Difficulties of academic approaches to go into
the market
 Competition with well-established tools
 How to demonstrate the benefits of AI-assisted
features
 Real conditions are much more difficult than a
research setting
• Strategy: develop AI plugins for popular tools
 JIRA as a good example!

11. Comments and questions