Abstract: There is a lack of a systematic, generic, domain independent objectoriented software engineering process for software familes. In such process a system family should be treated as a whole (opposite to multiple products maintained separately) and the reuse should be planned with assets developed for reuse. Particularly important is the embedding the domain engineering methods within object-oriented methods, especially the feature modeling for modeling variability. In the paper the problems associated with developing software familes and handling variability are presented and some aspects of generic development process for software families are introduced.