Technology transfer for reuse: a management model and process improvement framework

Increasingly, software organisations are looking towards large-scale systematic reuse as a way of improving productivity, raising quality and reducing delivery timescales. We discuss technology transfer for reuse at the RE (requirements engineering) level. We first examine the state-of-the-art in terms of the approaches to RE reuse currently suggested in the literature. We then discuss factors in the reuse technology transfer process, and argue that most of the existing work focuses on one particular strand of technology transfer namely that of the technical reuse process. We highlight the need to address the reuse management process, and propose a generic process model for RE reuse called ORM (Operational Reuse Model). We also discuss evaluation issues related to reuse technology transfer, and conclude with lessons and observations on making reuse a normal part of RE practice.