An Approach for Enabling Effective and Systematic Software Reuse: In a Globally Distributed Software Engineering Team That Uses a Lean Development Methodology

Abstract

We share our experience in pursuing effective software reuse in a globally distributed software engineering team that uses a lean development methodology. The paper outlines the journey, starting from recognizing the potential for reuse, the steps taken to enable systematic reuse in lean projects, the challenges faced, and the corrective actions taken to ensure effectiveness of systematic reuse. The main lessons learned include: (i) identification of relevant domains for reuse, (ii) explicitly assigning responsibilities for reuse component development, (iii) providing enabling infrastructure, (iv) defining more rigorous software development processes for reuse components, and (v) establishing a centralized team for developing reuse components. The results of our successful reuse initiative including the significant increase in quality and a 12 percent reuse of total code developed have been presented.