Reuse Engineering

Definition

Reuse Engineering

the activity consisting of the cohesive collection of all tasks that are primarily performed to increase the reuse on endeavors of certified reusable work products

Goals

The typical goals of reuse engineering are to:

• Ensure that an optimal supply of high-quality reusable work products are available within the development organization
• Ensure that these reusable work products are available to all project teams for reuse.

Objectives

The typical objectives of reuse engineering are to:

• Ensure that the supply of reusable work products is optimal in size, scope, and applicability.
• Ensure the quality of the reusable work products is high enough to justify reuse.
• Ensure that the reusable work products are available to all endeavor teams for reuse.

Examples

Typical examples of reuse engineering include:

• Project-internal reuse engineering (i.e., reuse restricted to the scope of a single project).
• Organizational-internal reuse engineering (i.e., reuse restricted to a single development organization).
• Organizational-external reuse engineering (i.e., reuse that includes the development organization, its subcontractor organizations, and potentially even its partner organizations.

Additional examples of reuse engineering include:

• Reuse engineering using only COTS software components.
• Reuse engineering using internally-developed work products including documentation as well as software, hardware, and data components.

Preconditions

Reuse engineering typically may begin when the following conditions hold:

• The need for increasing reuse within the organization has been recognized.
• Adequate funding and staffing to begin supporting the reuse engineering activity has been allocated.
• The reuse team is adequately:
  • Staffed.
  • Trained or experienced in reuse engineering.

Completion Criteria

Although never truely finished as long as any endeavors are underway, the majority of reuse engineering is typically considered complete when the following postconditions hold:

• The reuse repository exists.
• The reuse repository contains many relevant, high quality, and certified reusable work products.
• The reuse repository is being used heavily and effectively by both the reuse team and endeavor teams.
• User satisfaction with the repository is high.

Tasks

Reuse engineering typically involves the reuse team performing the following reuse tasks in an iterative, incremental, and parallel manner:

• Reuse Repository Production
• Reusable Work Product Identification
• Reusable Work Product Evaluation
• Reusable Work Product Preparation
• Reusable Work Product Certification
• Endeavor Support

Environments

Reuse engineering is typically performed using the following environment(s) and associated tools:

• Reuse Environment:
  • Configuration management tools
  • Knowledge management tools
  • Documentation tools
  • Test tools

Work Products

Reuse engineering typically results in the production of the following work products.

• Reuse Repository:
• Certified reusable work products

Phases

Reuse engineering tasks are typically performed during the following phases:

• Business Strategy: Ongoing
• Business Optimization: Ongoing
• Initiation: Ongoing
• Construction: Ongoing
• Delivery: Ongoing
• Usage: Ongoing
• Retirement: Ongoing

Guidelines

• The reuse of previously developed, high-quality work products:
  • Increases the quality of applications, components, and associated documentation.
  • Decreases both development and maintenance costs.
  • Decreases time to market.
  • Decreases endeavor risks.
  • Improves communication amongst endeavor stakeholders.
  • Improves training effectiveness.