Strategies of product family architecture development

Product family engineering (PFE) is successfully applied in different kinds of software intensive systems. As there are several ways to apply PFE, selecting an appropriate approach is a complex task. This paper introduces six ways to set the goal of PFE and eight strategies to achieve the goal. It also introduces steps how to evaluate which strategy provides the best fit for a company. The criteria for selecting a strategy have been derived from seventeen case studies, including nineteen product families, in the various contexts provided by small, medium size and large companies