Software process reusability in an industrial setting

Many software organizations are actively pursuing software process maturity. One of the cornerstones of software process improvement is the definition of processes in key process areas [Paulk 93a]. As development organizations define processes to increase their project's maturity, a method is needed to make the defined processes reusable by the organization and to tailor these reusable processes for reuse on other projects.

The thesis is that the development and implementation of a method to construct reusable corporate process definitions and to tailor them to specific projects will significantly increase the corporate level of process reuse.

Therefore, this thesis investigates how to pragmatically and systematically standardize and replicate project-specific processes in an industrial software setting. Process reusability and attributes of process reusability are discussed and a systematic and standardized method for process reuse is presented.

The utility of the methodology is demonstrated by its application to software process definition activities at PRe Inc., where the level of process reuse both before and after its application has been measured. Process reuse increased from 41 % in 1994 to 55% in 1995. PRC also saw a 10 to 1 improvement in time to define a project-specific process.