Incremental return on incremental investment

Abstract

Engenio made the transition to software product line practice in order to keep pace with growing business demand for its products. By using an incremental transition strategy, Engenio avoided the typical upfront adoption barrier - the equivalent development effort of 2 to 3 standalone products - which in their case was projected to be 900 to 1350 developer-months. Engenio discovered that by making an upfront investment of only 4 developer-months, they were able to start a chain reaction in which the tactical and strategic incremental returns quickly outpaced the incremental investments, making the transition pay for itself.