Software Reuse: What Really Works

With the advent of E-Commerce and the increased need to deliver reliable systems in a short timeframe, software reuse is progressively receiving increased interest from both the academic and practitioner communities. Like other technologies, software reuse, has been surrounded by a lot of hype. A major problem often cited in the reuse literature is that management in many organizations is not willing to undertake a longterm reuse initiative. In an attempt to identify reasonable requirements that are acceptable by both reuse experts and management in software developing organizations, we studied the practices of five reuse programs in four organizations. Our research question focuses on qualitatively describing key attributes of a reuse program from the perspective of both reuse experts and top management. Our findings suggest that the key requirements for the success of a reuse program are creating a shared vision for the reuse program, and gaining customer support.