Application of integrated product development method in Software development

Abstract: Context. With the development of software industry, Integrated Product Development (IPD) is employed by more and more companies(IBM，HUAWEI) in software development processes. Although there have been many fundamental studies on the IPD method, limited work has been done on case studies of the actual development processes. In order for the development team to better deal with the challenges in the integrated product development process, it is necessary to further study the challenges encountered by the development team and how to solve/mitigate these problems. Objectives. The main purpose of this research is to identify the challenges of IPD application in the software development process. Three research objectives were proposed to support the objectives. The first is to investigate the challenges in the integrated product development process. The second is to investigate the factors that cause the challenge. The third is to find solutions to these challenges. Methods. This research used a systematic mapping method to investigate the IPD challenges mentioned in the existing literature and obtain the factors and solutions of IPD challenges. Based on the systematic mapping method, a case study was conducted on a software company using the IPD method for process development. Archival data is used to understand and record the development process of selected projects. Then conduct interviews to obtain the challenges faced by IPD team members in the project development process and the factors leading to the challenges, and obtain the solutions that practitioners adopt when facing these challenges. Results. Through systematic mapping, the research identified 15 primary studies and 9 IPD challenges, the factors and solutions that lead to IPD challenges mentioned in primary studies have also been obtained. This research also conducted a frequency analysis of these challenges, and they will be effective evidence to support the results of the case study. Through case studies, 6 IPD challenges in the actual development process were identified. This research conducted an in-depth analysis of these challenges and obtained the factors and solutions that led to these challenges. Conclusions. This research summarizes the challenges faced by integrated product development in the actual development process, analyzes the factors that lead to the challenges, and proposes solutions/mitigation plans for the identified challenges. This research fills the gaps in the related fields of integrated product development. the research results of this thesis can help teams using integrated product development technologies to identify and avoid similar problems in advance.