Exploiting enterprise knowledge through domain analysis and frameworks: an experimental work

Software firms are facing requests for knowledge-intensive products and services. The challenge is to capture, formalise and reuse past and present expertise in new projects, reducing development costs and augmenting quality. This paper describes an experiment performed in an Italian software firm aimed at introducing inside the development environment a methodology for domain analysis and a suitable technology for designing and building object oriented components. The goal of the DOOM project was to evaluate the impact and benefits of the introduction of a domain engineering approach in a specific domain, laying the groundwork for the definition of a corporate reuse program. We present the results achieved with the experiment and the lessons learnt