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ASSET OVERVIEW

UNIT NAME

REUSEAG

VERSION
2.0.5, SPC-92051-CMC, 01-NOV-92
ORIGIN
ASSET
REVIEW CODE
OK
INET ADDRESS
librarian@source.asset.com
AUTHOR
Software Productivity Consortium
RIGHTS
Approved for public release; distribution unlimited
COPYRIGHT
1992 SPC
LOCATION
ASSET
PAL

CLASSIFICATION

KEYWORDS
Domain Assessment
Process Improvement
Process Management
Management, Process
Reuse Capability
Software Reuse
INDEX
SW Productivity Consortium
SPC
DEPENDENCIES
None
SEE ALSO
SHORT DESCRIPTION
Description of a well-defined approach for adoption of software reuse tech
TAXONOMY


Documents
    Reuse Adoption Guidebook


FILE LISTING

FILE SPECS
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Location of Asset: ../../ase02_01/docs/reuseag
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ABSTRACT

Reuse Adoption Guidebook

As demonstrated in European, Japanese, and U.S. organizations, the ability to reuse significant portions of existing software assets offers significant potential for increasing engineering productivity, speed-to-market, and system quality and for decreasing the costs of building and maintaining large, software-intensive systems. However, instituting an effective reuse practice in software development poses substantial challenges to an organization. These challenges derive from a wide variety of technical, managerial, economic, social, and legal factors, which must be addressed if organizations are to succeed.

This guidebook assists your organization in meeting the "reuse challenge" through a well-defined approach for adoption and institutionalization of software reuse technology to improve productivity, quality, and competitiveness. This guidebook will help you:

  • Understand your organization's business environment (e.g., market, competition, technology) and estimate the potential for reuse in your business area.
  • Understand your organization's abilities (e.g., process, tools, skills, culture) to practice reuse.
  • Initiate, plan, and implement a program to improve your organization's ability to effectively exploit the potential for reuse in your business area.

Reuse adoption is envisioned as part of a continuous process improvement program; thus, the guidebook assists the end user in identifying both near- and long-term needs and actions. It provides guidance for developing a plan that will put the technology into practice, and it provides guidance on how to address critical institutional barriers, risks, and planning areas that must be addressed to make a reuse effort successful.

Why Do You Need a Process for Reuse Adoption?

You need a process for reuse adoption to increase the effectiveness and the likelihood of success of your organization's effort to adopt reuse. You want to avoid the situation in which the adopting organization has only a vague notion of the current situation or what is to be accomplished. Without a well-developed understanding of how reuse relates to its current practice or how reuse will fit into the overall software development effort, the adoption effort is likely to fail.

You are probably aware of efforts to incorporate reuse that have had disappointing results or of organizations that are still avoiding reuse altogether. They are typically characterized by:

  • Lack of recognition of the potential benefits of reuse
  • Incomplete understanding of what is necessary to make reuse work
  • Lack of management commitment and direction
  • Tendency to focus on technical issues while neglecting social issues

Based on a survey of 113 individuals from 29 companies, Frakes and Fox (1993) report that management and infrastructure support are critical for systematic reuse but that most organizations are providing inadequate support. The report also indicates that the factors impeding reuse are lack of time to practice reuse, lack of trust in externally developed software, and lack of computer-aided software engineering (CASE) and development process support for reuse.

This guidebook helps you avoid the situation and the problems described above by providing a well-defined, bounded series of steps, guidelines, and tools that you use to address the myriad issues critical to success: the Reuse Adoption process.

How to Use this Guidebook

This guidebook consists of a Reuse Adoption process specification, supporting methods and guidelines, and examples of artifacts produced by the process. The organization of the guidebook is:

  • Section 1 defines major terms and messages in this guidebook. It identifies reasons for incorporating reuse into your organization and for using this guidebook's Reuse Adoption process as an aid. Finally, it identifies some of the foundations of the process.
  • Section 2, Overview of the Reuse Adoption Process, introduces the major concepts, identifies the roles in which people participate, and describes the major activities of the process.
  • Section 3, Specification of the Reuse Adoption Process, identifies, in a structured format, the details of the activities and provides guidance on how to perform each of the activities.
  • Section 4, Domain Assessment, describes a method for qualitatively estimating the potential for reuse in an organization's business area.
  • Section 5, Reuse Capability Assessment, describes a method for understanding an organization's process with respect to reuse sufficient for planning improvements-identifying process strengths and improvement opportunities.
  • Section 6, Reuse Adoption Strategy Development, provides guidance on developing a course of action to implement reuse in an organization in support of organizational objectives.

The Appendixes provide models, guidelines, examples, and background information that support application of the Reuse Adoption process. Included are:

  • Domain Assessment Model is used to determine which parts of an organization's business area are good candidates for reuse.
  • Reuse Capability Model is used to assess the effectiveness of current reuse activities and to support development of goals.
  • Reuse Adoption Risks identifies reuse-related situations and events that you should be aware of and manage.
  • Summary of Legal and Contractual Reuse Issues summarizes the current laws and contracting practices that relate to reuse. Its primary focus is on DoD contracting.
  • Reuse Assessment Report Annotated Outline provides a model report of the results of the domain and reuse capability assessments.
  • Reuse Action Plan Annotated Outline provides a model plan for implementing reuse in an organization.
  • Assessment Worksheets provides the forms used in conducting domain and reuse capability assessments.

REVISION HISTORY

2.0.5  1 June 94  Initial release to the PAL

RELEASE NOTICE

Approved for public release; Distribution unlimited

DISCLAIMER

This documentation is provided "AS IS" and without any expressed or
implied warranties whatsoever.  No warranties as to performance,
merchantability, or fitness for a particular purpose exist.
The user must assume the entire risk and liability of using this
document.  In no event shall any person or organization of people be
held responsible for any direct, indirect, consequential or
inconsequential damages or lost profits.

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