A Methodology for Value-oriented Strategic Release Planning to Provide Continuous Product Upgrading

Customers and potential buyers are increasingly demanding additional or improved product features. So which ones should finally be implemented in the next product release and why? Which features are not valuable enough and are better avoided or postponed? The planning of product upgrades by deciding which new features and releases to introduce when, is part of strategic release planning. In release planning there is a fine line between revenues by value provision, and cost effects. However, today’s market-driven mechatronic and electronic products pose a challenge to current domain-specific and feasibility-driven planning concepts. Current practice and literature therefore highlights the need for operatively applicable methods to support strategic release planning with value-oriented and cross-domain views. Therefore, this paper aims to present a methodological concept to support value-oriented strategic release planning.