The objective of the COPPER best practice action was to experiment in COCLEA a software development approach based on component integration in a specified product architecture.
The focus was on being able to decide if it is worthwhile to adopt a component-based approach inside the software development process for leveraging the advantages of object-orientation and reuse.

The technical objectives were:

- to better software application design

- to improve modularity and understandability of applications

- to increase component cohesion and decrease inter-component coupling

- to shift the focus from objects and classes in the code to components and architectures in the analysis and design

The business objectives were:

- to increase the efficiency of the software development process

- to shorten the development time, and the time-to-market

- to reduce maintenance effort:

These business objectives related to the internal operation of the firm and they focused on improving the development process in order to obtain a concrete benefit in terms of reduced effort and costs.

The strategic objective of the firm is to better the quality of the development process and, in turn, of the products delivered to the final customers.
The expected market impact is to lead to an increased quality of products and services as perceived by final customers, and to build on this competitive advantage the enlargement of the market share for the products of the firm.

The COPPER take-up action was expected to contribute to move toward the definition of a corporate software reuse strategy in the continuous improvement program of the firm.

Description of the project strategy

COPPER was centred on the take-up of a methodology for component-based development and use of an appropriate software tool supporting it. The workplan was devised for achieving a smooth and controlled adoption of best practices in the development environment.

Considering the importance of a correct training for the success of an improvement action, in the first phase the personnel directly involved in COPPER was exposed to an intensive training aiming to give them the knowledge and the competencies required for the execution of the project. The key staff directly involved in this phase transferred and replicated internally their experience and competencies, in particular to the baseline team.
The key staff was also responsible for defining guidelines for component-based software design and development and for identifying and integrating in the work organisation a suitable support tool.

The component-based approach was applied during the development of the baseline applications in order to validate the approach in the context of real projects developed in the company. A measurement program considering specific metrics and measurement activities allowed to continuously monitor and control the ongoing state of the experiment. Particular care was put in the preparation and execution of the measurement program in order to collect the information allowing to assess with a reasonable confidence the results of the take-up action.

During the analysis phase following the experiment in the baseline the data collected was evaluated both from a technical and business point of view. Qualitative data integrated the evaluation of the final results of the project.
Achievement of the expected project objectivea dna lessons learnt were described in a Final report.
Dissemination and exploitation of the results achieved and lessons learnt allowed the wider community to benefit from the COPPER experience.

Main project phases

The COPPER project originated from the idea to introduce inside COCLEA a component-based approach, leveraging the potential benefits of this methodology and building on the existing competencies concerning object-orientation. The approach proposed for the execution of the project was very straight-forward and was based on a sequence of main steps:

a) training of the key staff involved in the experiment and definition of the methodology;

b) identification of a suitable tool supporting the application of the methodology and definition of a handbook containing the practices for the experimentation in a baseline context;

c) definition of a measurement program and identification of a set of metrics for monitoring key indicators;

d) experimentation of the methodology in the context of a baseline and measurement;

e) evaluation of the experimentation and dissemination of results.

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