Reuse: where to begin and why

Abstract

The Software Engineering Institute (SEI) is interested in identifying the costs and benefits of software reuse to the mission critical computer resource (MCCR) community. In fulfilling this role, we were faced with the need to investigate reuse without making a large investment. This paper examines where to start a reuse activity by describing our initial view of reuse, our decisions on where to begin, what lessons we learned, and finally, our current view.The reuse life cycle described in our final view gives more insight on how and where to implement reuse. It defines the phases of a reuse life cycle that begin with business planning and shows their relationships. For each phase of the reuse life cycle, we give the goals, the outputs, and an approach for achieving the goals. Each organization that is interested in obtaining the benefits of reuse must evaluate reuse in terms of business goals and objectives. Once this evaluation has been made, the life cycle described in the paper provides one approach to achieving the benefits of reuse.