The Defense Department has instituted an aggressive initiative to cut software costs by requiring contractors to build reliable, maintainable, and reusable software. The STARS program and the Ada programming language are an outgrowth of this initiative. An effective software development methodology for meeting these requirements is Object-Oriented Development (OOD). However, experience has shown that the adoption of OOD is not only a technical issue but an organizational issue as well. There can be significant barriers to successful Object-Oriented Development if the engineering organization is structured along functional lines, as many companies currently are. Examples of these barriers are in the areas of software ownership and management, cost accounting and work breakdown structure, and geographical considerations. In order to overcome these barriers and to exploit the full benefits of OOD, a company may need to analyze its structure and be open to potential changes to its culture, its engineering policies, and its software organization.