Reuse Measurement & Assessment

Abstract

Measuring reuse serves two purposes: (i) it quantifies the reuse program and the reusable artefacts, and (ii) it assists in improving and encouraging the practice of reuse. “You can not control what you can not measure” is the essence of the first purpose. Reuse is a new technology, which dictates multi-dimensional changes to traditional software development. The latter purpose ensures that this transition is successful. Consequently this paper aims to address two questions: (i) “What to measure?”, and (ii) “How can we use measurement for incremental reuse process improvement?”. The paper takes a goal oriented approach and asserts that there are two sets of reuse goals in any organisation. The first emanates from top level business goals. The second from generic reuse process requirements, which are reflected in Reuse Maturity Models (RMMs). By combining these two approaches, measurements can provide favourable process improvement statistics.