| Over the years the costs associated with system development have dramatically changed. The cost of hardware has continually declined, while the cost of software has continually increased. One possible methodology to level or reduce software development costs, while still maintaining quality as seen from the customer's perspective, lies in the area of developing software with reuse. Software reuse is to use any information, artifact, product, or person held within the enterprise inventory in the development of new products. A major drawback to the initiation of a reuse program within the enterprise is the large up-front cost to establish a viable reuse program. In order to overcome this obstacle, the initiation of a reuse program requires a major commitment from management; this commitment includes providing for the up-front costs as well as continued support for the program throughout its life. In many instances, the benefits of a reuse program are obvious, but it is still necessary to convince management that the "status quo" will not continue to give them a profitable market share. To gain management's support within an enterprise, a reuse implementation framework is presented, which, if followed, will provide management with a methodology for instituting a process for developing software (specification to maintenance) with reusable artifacts. The reuse model aids senior management in doing a cost-benefit analysis to determine whether or not the implementation of a reuse software development program will assist the organization in gaining a competitive advantage in today's and tomorrow's market. The framework shows, if the domain is appropriate, development with reuse will shorten the development time, improve quality, and reduce development cost. The methodology for the institution of a reuse program identifies what is required to initiate a reuse program (training, repository development, etc.), as well as those requirements for successful continuation of the program (continued training, incentives, metrics, etc.). Software reuse is inherently a management issue and management involvement is absolutely required to bring about the cultural change that reuse will introduce in an enterprise, and, to approve the necessary expenditure of start-up and continuing funds required by a software reuse development program. Validation of the framework is presented based upon responses from software engineers and managers currently employed in software development. |
