Staged configuration through specialization and multilevel configuration of feature models

Feature modeling is a key technique for capturing commonalities and variabilities in system families and product lines. In this paper, we propose a cardinality-based notation for feature modeling, which integrates a number of existing extensions of previous approaches. We then introduce and motivate the novel concept of staged configuration. Staged configuration can be achieved by the stepwise specialization of feature models or by multi-level configuration, where the configuration choices available in each stage are defined by separate feature models. Staged configuration is important because in a realistic development process, different groups and different people make product configuration choices in different stages. Finally, we also discuss how multi-level configuration avoids a breakdown between the different abstraction levels of individual features. This problem, sometimes referred to as “analysis paralysis”, easily occurs in feature modeling because features can denote entities at arbitrary levels of abstractions within a system family.