Getting Started

Abstract

A software reuse program must provide significant economic benefit to an organization to receive enthusiastic support—and even to survive. Thus an organization should approach reuse in a pragmatic way. Sufficient commonality in current and anticipated software projects must exist to justify investment in reuse (for staff training, library development, etc.). Thus the organization should assess one or more areas of emphasis in which requirements for similar software frequently recur. In the case of a corporation, a business decision should be made whether to invest in a reuse program as an emphasis area. Whether for a government organization or a corporation, the decision should rest on present and expected requirements for recurring software; that is, on predicting whether the benefit from reuse will be sufficient to justify the investment.