Reuse of process elements-one company's experience

Abstract

This paper provides a summary of our experience, from the perspective of process reuse, in building a new division from the ground up. In the course of building a new organization, we were faced with many choices in the reuse of process elements available from our larger parent organization. First, we give an overview of our organization to provide the context of our software development effort: large, complex and dynamic. Next, we explore our motivations for reuse. We see two primary reasons for and benefits of reuse in our business environment. To support this reasoning, we examine what we are doing today by identifying what works and what does not work in the context of some real examples. We summarize the lessons learned from the examination of our experiences to date and analyze these in the context of what we believe to be the underlying barriers and the actions we believe will enable us to overcome the barriers. Last, we assert our view of the future. In this future, we examine what is required to support our original motivation for reuse and raise some questions that need to be answered to create the future we envision. The intent of the questions is to generate a starting point for further research.