Challenges and problems in product portfolio release and deployment management: A case study

Due to constantly increasing complexity and challenging customer requirements, release management of the IT services has become more and more complicated. The IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) is the most widely used IT service management framework. ITIL offers models and guidance for implementing IT service management processes including release management. The research problem of this study is: What types of challenges exist in product portfolio release and deployment management for IT services. The main contribution of this paper is to present the challenges related to release and deployment management of complex energy product portfolio from the IT service provider's viewpoint. A case study research method was used in this study with a single case: Tieto that is a leading IT service company in Northern Europe providing IT and product engineering services.