Groupware Technology and Software Reuse Position paper for the European Reuse Worskhop (ERW’98).

Computer-Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) is a research field concerned with the design and implementation of systems to support cooperative work. Such systems are usually called Groupware. Although Software Reusability (SR) is not commonly mentioned as an issue in the CSCW community, there are some obvious overlaps in design issues and methodologies. In this paper I will argue that reusability issues are of particular importance to groupware technology and relate our experiences in this matter. Changing requirements An issue of particular concern in the implementation1 of groupware is that it is impossible to predict in detail how a system will be used, hence the requirements are at least partially unknown when the system is constructed. Changing requirements is a general problem in software engineering, but in CSCW the problem is more grave than in other domains. In order to adequately support cooperation between people, one needs some understanding of how cooperation takes place. This is a very subtle and not fully formalizable process, as failures of early office automatio