Towards Consistent Value Orientation in Release Planning

Product development is experiencing a paradigm shift under the impact of highly segmented and rapidly evolving markets. The intention to offer successful products in such turbulent conditions forces companies to provide value comprehensively but rapidly. These attempts conceal a high risk of rising product complexities and development efforts. For this reason, the aim of design should be to maintain or improve value contribution according to customer and market demands with fast response time while reducing internal product disruption and development efforts. A proactive planning of continuous value contribution by introducing new product features, while considering the complexity of product structures and corresponding development efforts, is established in the field of release planning. Here, systematic ways are proposed to support the identification and timing of product features to provide value for customers and markets as well as the consideration and planning of according efforts for their realization. However, the literature highlights a need for more consistent value orientation in release planning. For this reason, this contribution aims to present an outline and further steps for consistent value orientation in release planning in the context of systems engineering. Accordingly, this contribution first discusses the significance of consistent value orientation during release planning activities. On this basis, requirements for consistent value orientation in release planning are presented and the respective current state of existing concepts are discussed. Ultimately, a framework towards consistent value orientation in release planning is presented with a concluding outlook for further research.