Technical requirements for the implementation of an experience base

Reuse of different types of experience is a key issue in successful improvement in software engineering. The approach taken in the Quality Improvement Paradigm (QIP) and its supporting organisation, tile Experience Factory (EF), is to define an Experience Base (EB), where all types of reusable objects are organised and stored. The objects may be of any type related to software development, for example, code, methods, quality models and specifications. Furthermore, not only objects identical to the target object needed can be reused, but also similar ones. This paper defines important concepts in a reuse context, elaborates a reuse scenario from which the requirements for the implementation of an Experience Base are derived. A list of 22 technical requirements is defined which cover the functional aspects related to the use of an Experience Base. The evaluation of three alternative implementation approaches are presented as an example: two database alternatives and one based on Case-Based Reasoning (CBR). Future work is to investigate the costs for extending the functionality to fulfil the requirements and to use the requirements in a real setting