Reuse Environment

Definition

A reuse environment is any development environment that is primarily used by the reuse organization to store and maintain an organization’s reusable work products (e.g., documents and software components).

Objectives

The typical objectives of a reuse environment are to provide the necessary infrastructure to enable the:

• Development organization to identify, evaluate, select, and obtain reusable software and documents.
• Reuse organization to store, maintain, iterate, and certify reusable software and documents.

Benefits

The typical benefits of a reuse environment include:

• A reuse environment provides a central repository for reusable intellectual property.
• An integrated reuse environment increases the amount of reuse on projects and thereby:
  • Decreases the development time and costs of applications.
  • Increases the quality of applications by including tested components of certified quality.

Contents

The typical contents of a reuse environment are:

• Hardware Components:
  • Workstations for performing reuse tasks (e.g., evaluation, iteration, documentation, testing, certification, and storage)
  • Database server
  • Disk or tape library for storing reusable components
  • Local area network
• Software Components:
  • Documentation Tools
  • Database Management Systems
  • Repository search software
  • Configuration Management Tools
  • Test Tools
• Repository of reusable intellectual property:
  • Deliverable documentation (e.g., reference requirements, reference architectures, and patterns)
  • Process documentation (e.g., standards, procedures, guidelines, templates, checklists)
  • Software components
  • Associated test software and test data

Stakeholders

The typical stakeholders of a reuse environment are:

• Producers:
  • Reuse Organization
  • Environments Team
• Evaluator:
  • Environments Inspection Team
• Approvers:
  • Technical Leader
  • Project Manager
• Maintainers:
  • Reuse Organization
  • Environments Team
• Users:
  • Reuse Organization, which uses the reuse environment to store, maintain, iterate, and certify reusable software and documents.
  • Development Organization, which uses the reuse environment to identify, evaluate, select, and obtain reusable software and documents.

Phases

• Business Strategy: Applicable
• Business Optimization: Applicable
• Initiation: Applicable
• Construction: Applicable
• Delivery: Applicable
• Usage: Applicable
• Retirement: Archived

Preconditions

A reuse environment can typically be started if the following preconditions hold:

• The reuse organization is adequately staffed and funded.
• The environments team is adequately staffed and trained.
• The reuse environment section of the project environments description document exists.

Inputs

The typical inputs to a reuse environment include:

• Work Products:
  • Project Environments Description Document
  • Reusable deliverable documentation (e.g., reference requirements, reference architectures, and patterns)
  • Reusable process documentation (e.g., standards, procedures, guidelines, templates, checklists)
  • Reusable software components
  • Reusable associated test software and test data
• Stakeholders:
  • Environments Team, which constructs the reuse environment.
  • Reuse Organization, which uses the reuse environment to store, maintain, iterate, and certify reusable software and documents.
  • Development Organization, which uses the reuse environment to identify, evaluate, select, and obtain reusable software and documents.

Guidelines

• A reuse environment must be scalable to handle storing all of the development organization's reusable intellectual property.
• A reuse environment must be easy to use or else reuse will be extremely limited.

Conventions

A reuse environment is typically constrained by the following conventions:

• Reuse Environment Inspection Checklist

Examples

• Enterprise Reuse Environment
• Program Reuse Environment
• Project Reuse Environment