Introduction
Most projects should include asset consumption as part of their development process, in order to obtain the benefits
that come from reuse.
Project Management
The impacts of asset consumption on Project Management are:
-
Asset reuse is factored into cost, schedule, and risks
-
Build vs. reuse decisions are supported by effective use of information provided in reuse libraries
Environment
Before asset-based development tasks can be performed, an environment must be set up that supports these tasks. In most
cases, this needs to be an environment that has broader scope than a single project, and is therefore the
responsibility of the organization-level reuse program.
The individual project needs access to this environment. This typically includes access to one or more Artifact: Asset Repository. This is closely related to more generic
artifacts (e.g. Project Repository) and to the setup of the project's Configuration and Change Management environment.
The main difference is that the asset library is typically not under the control of the individual project, but is
managed at the organizational level.
The delivery process should be updated to include the project's asset-based development tooling. For more information
on tooling to support asset-based development, see Guideline: Selecting Asset-Based Development Tools.
The project-specific guidelines may also need to be modified to reflect the refined workflows. For more information on
preparing project-specific guidelines, see Guideline: Preparing Project-Specific Reuse Guidelines.
Configuration and Change Management
There are general tasks that apply to consumption of any Reusable Asset. This includes locating a suitable asset (Task: Search Asset), applying the asset (Task: Use Asset), providing feedback on the asset (Task: Provide Asset Feedback), and possibly identifying other
potentially Reusable Assets (Task: Conduct Recurring Problem Analysis).
Other Disciplines
All the other disciplines include asset reuse concerns. For example:
-
In the Requirements discipline, there may be specific requirements to reuse specific artifacts. For example, there
may be design constraints to use a particular reference architecture. More often, reuse is a means to meet
requirements with cost savings and lower risk. Reuse must be factored into the prioritization and scope management
of requirements.
-
The Analysis and Design discipline has a strong reuse focus, reflected by the practice of Use Component
Architectures, and by incorporating existing design elements. This in turn affects Implementation, Test, and
Deployment.
|