From Local to Global Coordination: Lessons from Software Reuse

Abstract

Software reuse offers the promise of reducing product costs and increasing system reliability by making it possible to share code. However, software reuse in practice has proved much harder. This paper examines three cases of software reuse to understand why reuse remains elusive. The findings show that reuse encounters three coordination problems: the work required to traverse boundaries, the effects of organizational and environmental changes, and the coordination required to align and assemble multiple pieces of software.