related case studies

Product planning Systems design course

Corporations make extensive investments in computer software and software development. Programmers often start each program writing code from scratch. If they had saved the most frequently used routines from previous projects, they would not have to reinvent the wheel each time. And if they could pool their reusable components into a library with the routines of others, the savings could be significant. The problem is, how do you get employees to re-use the key routines from their and other’s previous work. There are numerous problems. Programmers are notorious for not documenting what they do, and for not trusting code written by someone else. And developing reusable components places demands on programmers to thoroughly debug, document and register their software.

This project was initiated by a manager who was concerned that programmers were not using an available programming objects database. He wanted to find out why. Ten programmers generated 75 statements describing different issues in using the database. Each then sorted the issues into piles of similar ones and a nine cluster map was developed. The map shows four issues on the right that are related to access to the database. Four clusters on the left and bottom describe organizational support and infrastructure. Success Criteria are shown at the top.

The participants also rated the issues for importance. The two highest clusters in importance were Resources, an infrastructure and support issue, and Adding Widgets, an access issue.

We can see in the listing of statements in the Resources cluster that the participants feel that there was considerable concern with the funding of the extra costs associated with such an effort.

Statements in the Adding Widgets cluster describe mostly procedural concerns -- how best to manage the quality of additions to the database.

These results were used by the manager of the database in formulating strategies to encourage greater use of the software component database.