Stakeholder identification for a structured release planning approach in the automotive domain

Abstract

AbstractIn regulated domains like automotive, release planning is a complex process. This complex process consists of an agreement between product development processes for hardware as well as mechanic systems and approaches for software development. Particularly in automotive, the creation and synchronization of release plans for hardware as well as software is a challenge. Within the whole complex system development, it is challenging to consider the relevant stakeholders in the initial creation of a release plan. Depending on the context that a release plan shall be created for, there are different stakeholders that have to be considered from the beginning. There are numerous publications in the area of release planning, but there is no detailed research that shows which stakeholders have to be addressed in the automotive context. The aim of this work is to identify stakeholders of a release plan as an appropriate approach to create transparency in release planning in the automotive domain. Action research to elaborate relevant stakeholders for release planning was conducted at Dr. Ing. h. c. F. Porsche AG. We present a detailed overview of identified stakeholders as well as their required content and added value regarding two pilot projects. With this contribution, identified stakeholders of release planning from the hardware and software points of view are introduced. We discuss, based on the results, why there are common stakeholders for the two projects and why there are individual stakeholders for each project. With this work, we present a more complete stakeholder identification and a more detailed understanding of their needs.