Variability assessment in software product families

Software variability management is a key factor in the success of software systems and software product families. An important aspect of software variability management is the evolution of variability in response to changing markets, business needs, and advances in technology. To be able to determine whether, when, and how variability should evolve, we have developed the COVAMOF software variability assessment method (COSVAM). The contribution of COSVAM is that it is a novel, and industry-strength assessment process that addresses the issues that are associated to the current variability assessment practice. In this paper, we present the successful validation of COSVAM in an industrial software product family.