Measure reuse

A good project design results in good parts of reuse in future projects. It is carefully designed, a lot of thought is put into defining baseline and building blocks. You have done everything that would make it a good candidate for maximum reuse.

Second project happens and inches towards completion and it is time to review and there is a feeling in room that it took too long, as if it was designed ground up, we thought we will be able to reuse the baseline set with first project.

What happened ?

We forget. So if it was not documented first time around the goal posts will be shifted.

Did clear measure of reuse happen ?

Perhaps new problems got project stalled and perceptions changed ?

We get used to and easily forget the prior condition particularly if it was worse, e.g. your build times were 18 hours which were reduced to 3 hours, but now if adding new platform adds another hour, it may be construed that build time is worsened by 1 hour. So objective measurement is essential.

Reuse is not just material, i.e. source-code, it also is know-how, processes. Did you consider this?

No one is having as much context as you if you were involved in first project, its incumbent upon you to keep the teams informed on these metrics. If not communicated well, it can impair decision-making where you may throw the baby with bath water.