The impact of CASE tools, Ada, and software reuse of a DoD software development project

Abstract

Software continues to be the single greatest challenge facing DoD systems developers. The criticality of software as a integral component of system design, continues to grow in importance as DoD moves into the 21st Century. To meet this ever increasing challenge, software development organizations are incorporating new design requirements and practices into their development processes. These new requirements/practices, properly implemented into the development process, can reduce software development and maintenance costs and increase software quality and development productivity. This thesis investigates the impact of three management-selected software development requirements/practices--CASE tools, Ada, and software reuse--on the progress of a particular DoD software development project, known as Project X. After a brief introduction the thesis presents background literature on the three development requirements of Project X. The background literature is used to support the Project X case study. Information required for the case study is obtained through interviews with Project X affiliated development personnel. Interview results are analyzed and interpreted through a comparison with information found in the background literature. Results of the case study identify several problems with management's plan to implement the three development requirements into Project X. The thesis identifies specific root causes for the implementation problems, and makes recommendations to reduce the impact of these problems on Project X and other present and future DoD software development projects.