Several criteria point to whether or not you should start a Software Product Line:

Essential Criteria are the necessary conditions that must apply to your organisation in order to have product line potential. For example:

• More than one product is developed or planned to be developed - if you are not going to be developing multiple products then software product lines are not applicable.

Supporting Criteria give an indication that Software Product Lines could be beneficial to your organisation but are not necessary conditions in order for your organisation to have Product Line potential. For example:

• There is a recognition within the organisation that something needs to change - adopting Software Product Lines will involve change in your organisation; this process will be easier if your organisation already recognises that change is needed.

Exclusion Criteria indicate conditions that should not apply to your organisation in order to have product line potential. For example:

• Software plays a small part in the overall product - if software is only a small part of your overall product then you should probably consider improvements to other parts of your product development process before you look at improvements to your software development process.

Read how our assessment service can help you decide whether or not to start a Software Product Line.

Read about pure::variants, a tool for developing Software Product Lines.

Find out about starting Software Product Lines.