Introduction to the experience reports track

It is our great pleasure to welcome you to the Experience Reports Track of the 27th International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE). The objective of the Experience Reports Track is to establish a dialogue between software practitioners and software engineering researchers on the benefits, obstacles, and weaknesses of applying software engineering principles, techniques, methods, processes, and tools in an industrial or organizational setting. In the call for papers, we invited four types of submissions: case studies, experience reports, experimental reports and problem statements. The call attracted 72 submissions from all over the world. The program committee of the Experience Reports Track accepted 14 submissions. The selection was based on at least three reviews per submission and the results of intensive consensus discussions prior to and during the Experience Reports Track program committee meeting, held on November 12, 2004 in Essen, Germany.The accepted papers of the ICSE 2005 Experience Reports Track cover topics such as agile methods, product lines, requirements engineering, software architecture, testing and verification. They document important lessons learned from applying software engineering principles, techniques, methods, processes, and tools in practice. Putting together the Experience Reports Track of ICSE 2005 was a team effort. We extend our sincerest gratitude to all of the people who helped us shape this event, especially to the members of our program committee and the ICSE 2005 organizing committee and to Richard van de Stadt, Andreas Metzger, and Nelufar Ulfat-Bunyadi. We hope that you find the Experience Reports Track of ICSE 2005 interesting and thought-provoking.