[Paper] Empirical Assessment of the Perception of Software Product Line Engineering by an SME before Migrating its Code Base

Source: arXiv - 2512.02707v1

Overview

The paper reports on a real‑world case study where a small‑to‑medium sized enterprise (SME) evaluated the prospect of turning its existing family of software variants into a Software Product Line (SPL). By interviewing developers, managers, and other stakeholders, the authors uncovered how the migration is perceived, what benefits are expected, and which risks could derail the effort. Their findings give practitioners a concrete roadmap for handling the cultural and technical challenges that often accompany SPL adoption.

Key Contributions

• Empirical insight into SPL migration perceptions within an SME context, a setting that is under‑represented in the literature.
• Interview design and protocol that other companies can reuse to gauge stakeholder readiness and uncover hidden concerns.
• Qualitative analysis showing that every role (developers, testers, project managers) can identify concrete, role‑specific benefits from SPL adoption.
• Risk‑mitigation recommendations emphasizing continuous stakeholder communication, preservation of good existing practices, and active involvement throughout the migration.

Methodology

1. Stakeholder selection – The authors identified a cross‑section of participants (developers, QA engineers, product owners, and senior management) to capture a holistic view of the organization.
2. Semi‑structured interviews – A set of open‑ended questions was crafted to explore expectations, perceived benefits, feared drawbacks, and willingness to change. Interviews were recorded, transcribed, and anonymized.
3. Thematic coding – Using qualitative analysis software, the transcripts were coded for recurring themes (e.g., “reusability”, “learning curve”, “process disruption”).
4. Triangulation – Findings were cross‑checked with internal documentation (process manuals, version‑control statistics) to ensure consistency between stated perceptions and actual practices.

The approach is deliberately lightweight so that other SMEs can replicate it without needing a full‑blown academic research setup.

Results & Findings

• Universal benefit recognition – All participants could name at least one advantage of SPL migration that aligned with their daily tasks (e.g., developers saw faster feature integration, testers expected more systematic regression testing).
• Key perceived benefits:
  • Reduced duplication of code and assets across variants.
  • Improved time‑to‑market for new product configurations.
  • Easier maintenance thanks to a single, well‑structured code base.
• Primary concerns:
  • Learning curve for the SPL tooling and architecture.
  • Potential loss of “good practices” that have evolved organically.
  • Fear of increased coordination overhead among teams.
• Risk mitigation patterns that emerged from the data:
  1. Transparent communication – regular updates and open forums to discuss progress and setbacks.
  2. Preservation of existing workflows – only replace practices that truly hinder SPL goals.
  3. Active stakeholder involvement – letting developers prototype parts of the SPL early to build ownership.

Practical Implications

• Roadmap for SMEs – The interview template can be dropped into a sprint planning cycle to assess SPL readiness before any code changes are made.
• Tooling decisions – Knowing that the learning curve is a top concern, companies can prioritize tools with low entry barriers (e.g., feature‑model editors that integrate with familiar IDEs).
• Change‑management playbook – The three‑step mitigation strategy can be baked into a migration checklist, ensuring that communication, practice preservation, and co‑creation are not optional extras.
• Developer advocacy – By surfacing role‑specific benefits, managers can craft targeted messaging that boosts morale and reduces resistance during the transition.

Limitations & Future Work

• Single‑company case study – Results may not generalize to larger enterprises or domains with vastly different regulatory constraints.
• Qualitative focus – The study does not provide quantitative performance metrics (e.g., exact reduction in build time) after migration.
• Future directions suggested by the authors include longitudinal tracking of the actual SPL rollout to validate whether the perceived benefits materialize, and expanding the study to multiple SMEs to identify industry‑wide patterns.

Authors

• Thomas Georges
• Marianne Huchard
• Mélanie König
• Clémentine Nebut
• Chouki Tibermacine

Paper Information

• arXiv ID: 2512.02707v1
• Categories: cs.SE, cs.AI
• Published: December 2, 2025
• PDF: Download PDF