Checklist: Reusable Asset
This checklist helps verify the accuracy, quality, and conformance to standards of a Reusable asset. It is of particular value in a review.
Relationships
Related Elements
Main Description

This checklist contains some things that should be examined when reviewing an Artifact: Reusable Asset.

Check Items
Verify functional correctness and technical accuracy
Verify packaging quality
Verify degree of reusability
Distinguish between general reusability vs reusability in very specific contexts
Verify consistency with established reuse guidelines
Evaluate against standard asset qualities

There are several characteristics and qualities of a good asset. Some of these qualities are outlined in the table below.

Source: Measuring Software Reuse, Addison-Wesley by Jeffrey S. Poulin, pp. 125

Attribute Description
Ease of understanding The component has thorough documentation, including self-documenting code and in-line comments.
Functional completeness The component has all the required operations for the current requirement, and for any reasonable future requirements.
Reliability The component consistently performs the advertised function without error, and passes repeated tests across various hardware and operating systems.
Good error and exception handling The component isolates, documents, and handles errors consistently. It also provides a variety of options for error response.
Information hiding The component hides implementation details from the user, for example, internal variables and their representation. It also clearly defines the interfaces to other operations and data.
High cohesion and low coupling The component does a specific, isolated function with minimal external dependencies.
Portability The component does not depend on unique hardware or operating system services.