From local to global coordination: lessons from software reuse

Organizational memory systems offer the promise of supporting work by making information available to people so they do not have to rework solved problems. However, studies of the practices surrounding the creation and reuse of information suggest that it is a very complex activity. This raises the question of whether organizational memories are feasible, and what it takes to use them for the long term. One area rich with long-term attempts to devise organization memories is software reuse. Studies of software reuse efforts show how difficult organizational memory is as a practical concept, and how efforts to encapsulate, share, and reuse information have encountered technical and managerial challenges. This paper presents three cases of software reuse, and shows how the efforts were surrounded by complex coordination practices, brought about by a variety of circumstances including organizational change.