Open Access

Philipp Hohl, Jürgen MünchORCiD, Kurt Schneider, Michael Stupperich

• Context: The current situation and future scenarios of the automotive domain require a new strategy to develop high quality software in a fast pace. In the automotive domain, it is assumed that a combination of agile development practices and software product lines is beneficial, in order to be capable to handle high frequency of improvements. This assumption is based on the understanding that agile methods introduce more flexibility in short development intervals. Software product lines help to manage the high amount of variants and to improve quality by reuse of software for long term development. Goal: This study derives a better understanding of the expected benefits for a combination. Furthermore, it identifies the automotive specific challenges that prevent the adoption of agile methods within the software product line. Method: Survey based on 16 semi structured interviews from the automotive domain, an internal workshop with 40 participants and a discussion round on ESE congress 2016. The results are analyzed by means of thematic coding.