Decision Sciences Journal
Volume 30, Number 4
Fall 1999
A Performance Measure for Software Reuse Projects
Marcus A. Rothenberger
School of Business Administration, University of Wisconsin –
Milwaukee, PO Box 742, Milwaukee, WI 53201, e-mail: rothenb@uwm.edu
Kevin J. Dooley
Department of Management, Department of Industrial Engineering,
Arizona State University, PO Box 874006, Tempe, AZ 85287-4006,
e-mail: kevin.dooley@asu.edu
Abstract. The efficient development of software has
become a critical factor to the success of many organizations.
Significant competitive advantage can be realized by reducing
the time to complete software development, while maintaining
or improving quality levels. Project management activities, including
the measurement of performance at the level of the project, can
help the organization to both control projects and learn from
experience. Traditionally, the productivity of a software development
project has been measured as the complexity of code produced
per unit of labor involved. An increasing number of organizations,
however, are adopting the practice of software reuse, and under
such conditions, such a traditional measure of productivity does
not fully capture all the relevant elements of the reuse-driven
development environment. This research develops a new performance
measure that considers four major components of performance:
productivity associated with development of new code, productivity
associated with the reuse of previously written code, quality
of the reuse decision, and relative value of reuse to the company.
To illustrate the feasibility of the measure, a real-world productivity
assessment is presented for an example company, and related implementation
issues are discussed.
Subject Areas: Computer Science, Heuristics, Management
Information Systems, Parameter Estimation, Performance Appraisal,
Productivity, Quality, Statistics, and Systems Development Methodologies. |