COTS and Reusable Software Management Planning: A Template for Life-Cycle Management

The acquisition community needs guidance in long-term management planning for selecting, approving, and upgrading software products, especially commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) and other reusable software products. As the mixture of these components in systems increases, the demand for a planned way to manage them continues to grow. The COTS and Reusable Software Management Plan (CRSMP) can facilitate acquisition programs' management of COTS and other reusable software products. The CRSMP provides a strategy outline for managing data about component licensing, tracking release schedules, monitoring software interdependencies, choosing specific features and extensions and documenting those choices, and evaluating and mitigating risks associated with deploying COTS and other re-usable software components in a system. The CRSMP presented in this report can serve as a guide for how to manage multiple COTS and other reusable software components in complex systems.