Enablers and inhibitors for speed with reuse

Abstract

An open issue in industry is software reuse in the context of large scale Agile product development. The speed offered by agile practices is needed to hit the market, while reuse is needed for long-term productivity, efficiency, and profit. The paper presents an empirical investigation of factors influencing speed and reuse in three large product developing organizations seeking to implement Agile practices. The paper identifies, through a multiple case study with 3 organizations, 114 business-, process-, organizational-, architecture-, knowledge- and communication factors with positive or negative influences on reuse, speed or both. Contributions are a categorized inventory of influencing factors, a display for organizing factors for the purpose of process improvement work, and a list of key improvement areas to address when implementing reuse in organizations striving to become more Agile. Categories identified include good factors with positive influences on reuse or speed, harmful factors with negative influences, and complex factors involving inverse or ambiguous relationships. Key improvement areas in the studied organizations are intra-organizational communication practices, reuse awareness and practices, architectural integration and variability management. Results are intended to support process improvement work in the direction of Agile product development. Feedback on results from the studied organizations has been that the inventory captures current situations, and is useful for software process improvement work.