ORGANIZATIONAL CONSIDERATIONS FOR SOFTWARE REUSE

Reuse is widely promoted as one of the most promising methods for incr easing productivity and quality within software development. Until rec ently most research into strategies for systematic reuse has focused o n solution of the technical issues. Now as companies (mostly IT focuse d) implement the strategies developed, they find there are other issue s which hold back their success, somewhat unrelated to the technical s olutions offered. Reuse processes are not simple technologies and meth ods slotted into a development, like the transition in design notation from traditional approaches to an object-orientated method. Whereas t echnology changes involve retraining developers. Reuse requires the wh ole organisation and funding of development to be revised. If the magn itude of change involved in transitioning an IT organisation is so enc ompassing, where does this leave the rest of industry which is increas ingly reliant on software to support their business process? This pape r looks at organisational and management issues raised by the introduc tion of software reuse to the development process. We identify inhibit ors of reuse adoption, look at causes of these and suggest possible so lutions. We aim to concisely present all those non-technical issues th at should be considered when introducing a reuse program. Considered a lso is how these issues affect companies which have IT in only a busin ess support capacity, making this paper relevant throughout industry.