Improving software development the object-oriented way

This paper focuses on the impact of object-oriented methods on software process improvement. It is shown that object technology in itself is a paradigm that supports improvement to a degree, that other programming paradigms can't: ''Objects'' extend the notion of well-structuredness, replicability and reusability of results to software products themselves. These insights are gained from a Process Improvement Experiment, ESSI Project N degrees 21411 (MAZ-PIE), in the context of the European Systems & Software Initiative's (ESSI) ''Software Best Practice'' program. The experiment is concerned with improving the software development process by using computer-based methodologies and tools for object-oriented analysis and design, reuse management, and configuration management. It is performed in the framework of the introduction of a company-wide quality system. This paper discusses the benefits of ''objects'' for software process improvement and gives a short overview about the underlying experiment.