Limiting practices in developing and managing software-intensive systems: A comparative study

Within the automotive industry, up to 90% of all new features are dependent on electronics and software. Consequently, the amount of software and electronics in vehicles are rapidly increasing. The same trend has been observed in other domains, such as telecom, avionics, trains, and more. An important factor in dealing with this inherent complexity is the use of a system architecture. The architecture is typically an enabler for both efficiency and effectiveness in the development of software-intensive systems but not directly connected to the customer needs. For example, the architecture can increase the agility of upcoming product releases, in order to cost effectively satisfy future customer needs. By combining two parallel multiple case studies, one focusing on the architects view, and the other one focusing on the managerial perspective, we have identified six limitations. Our results indicate that the focus is on customer requirements for the current product, on the expense of the internal requirements related to the development of the architecture and long-term profitability. Further, even if the early phases of development are identified as a success criterion, they are still not given enough attention.