4th International Workshop on Software Product Management (IWSPM 2010)
Sydney, Australia, September 27, 2010
http://2010.iwspm.org/

In conjunction with the 18th IEEE International Requirements Engineering Conference (RE 10)
Sydney, Australia, September 29 - October 1, 2010
http://www.re10.org/

PDF-Version of Call for Papers
http://2010.iwspm.org/wp-content/uploads/iwspm10_callforpapers.pdf

About IWSPM 2010
Product success depends on skilled and competent product management. In essence, a product manager decides what functionality and quality a product should offer, to which customers, and when in time, while assuring a winning business case.
Software product management is particularly important when the product is envisioned, developed, and deployed in a global environment. Geographical distance and cultural differences need to be addressed when collaborating along the requirements value chain and robust and effective integration achieved when composing products along the supply chain.
After the success of the previous workshops (collocated with the recent RE conferences) this workshop aims at bringing practitioners and research experts together for exchanging ideas, knowledge, and experience, and for setting a research agenda based on industry needs.

IWSPM 2010 pursues the following objectives:
* Grow the software product management body of knowledge and identify challenges and future avenues for research relevant to both academia and industry.
* Consolidate software product management as a research field within the greater field of software engineering and business management.
* Provide software product managers and researchers a dedicated forum for exchanging ideas and best practices, thus fostering industry-academia collaboration.

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:
* Product management for software, software-intensive systems, information technology, and software as a service
* Innovation management for software products
* Market-driven requirements engineering: elicitation, triage, management, specification, and communication of requirements
* Product planning: product visioning, strategy, roadmapping, and release definition
* Product portfolios and life-cycles: product families, product lines, and incorporation of third party or open-source components
* Collaboration in software ecosystems and supply networks: subcontracting, partnering, tendering, negotiation, coordination and control, and supplier management
* Business aspects: business case development, business planning, and marketing
* Product management environments: SME?s, large-scale organizations, cross-company ecosystems, and global settings
* Performance improvement: best practices, measurement, and process development and improvement
* Competence development: skills and competence evolution
* Tools for product management: evaluation and introduction

Workshop proceedings and best paper award
Proceedings of accepted papers will appear in electronic format, in the IEEE CS Digital Library.
There will be a best paper award in terms of an opportunity for publication of an extended version in Information and Software Technology (IST) published by Elsevier.

Paper preparation, submission and evaluation
We invite original submissions of high quality papers in 2 categories.
* Research papers ? technical solutions and empirical studies. Research papers explain the addressed problem, its relevance to the workshop topics, and the research approach. Solution papers are additionally expected to include preliminary validation.
* Industry practice papers ? experience reports and problem statements. Industry papers provide sufficient context for understanding the reported challenges. Experience reports additionally describe the insights gained and the general lessons learned for software product management.
In both categories it is possible to submit:
* Full papers (up to 10 pages)
* Short/position/vision papers (up to 4 pages).
Prospective authors are invited to submit high quality papers written in English via the EasyChair submission system: http://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=iwspm10
Submissions must be formatted according to the IEEE CS proceedings format. Instructions and templates: http://www.computer.org/portal/web/cscps/formatting
All submitted papers will be peer-reviewed by at least three members of the program committee and selected based on workshop relevance, academic rigor (only research papers), innovation, industrial applicability, and quality of writing. Accepted papers will appear in the workshop program and proceedings.
At least one author is required to register and participate during the workshop.

Important dates
Papers due: June 28, 2010
Notification of acceptance: Aug 2, 2010
Camera-ready papers due: Aug 23, 2010
Preliminary program: Aug 30, 2010
IWSPM 2009: Sept 27, 2010
All deadlines are 23:59 Apia, Samoa time.

Program committee
* Ayb�ke Aurum, University of New South Wales (Australia)
* Hamish Barney, Atlassian (Australia)
* Sjaak Brinkkemper, Utrecht University (The Netherlands)
* Maya Daneva, University of Twente (The Netherlands)
* Christof Ebert, Vector Consulting Services (Germany)
* Samuel Fricker, University of Zurich and Fuchs-Informatik AG (Switzerland)
* Tony Gorschek, Blekinge Institute of Technology (Sweden)
* Paul Gr�nbacher, Johannes Kepler University (Austria)
* Gerald Heller, Software Process Optimization (Germany)
* Andrea Herrmann, University Braunschweig (Germany)
* Alain Hevner, University of South Florida (USA)
* Hans-Bernd Kittlaus, InnoTivum Consulting (Germany)
* Mahvish Khurum, Blekinge Institute of Technology (Sweden)
* John Milburn, Pragmatic Marketing (USA)
* Bj�rn Regnell, Lund University and Sony Ericsson (Sweden)
* Guenter Ruhe, University of Calgary (Canada)
* Motoshi Saeki, Tokyo Institute of Technology (Japan)
* Kari Smolander, Lappeenranta University of Technology (Finland)
* Tony Wasserman, Carnegie Mellon University (USA)
* Inge van de Weerd, Utrecht University (The Netherlands)
* Yunwen Ye, Software Research Associates (Japan)
* Wei Zhang, Peking University (China)

Workshop organizing committee
* General Chair: Ayb�ke Aurum, University of New South Wales (Australia)
* Program Chair: Samuel Fricker, University of Zurich and Fuchs-Informatik AG (Switzerland)

Advisory board
* Sjaak Brinkkemper, Utrecht University (The Netherlands)
* Christof Ebert, Vector Consulting Services (Germany)
* Tony Gorschek, Blekinge Institute of Technology (Sweden)

For further information, please contact us:
General inquiries regarding the IWSPM workshop: aybuke@unsw.edu.au
Inquiries regarding the IWSPM program: fricker@ifi.uzh.ch