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.
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