Knowledge Management Processes and Support: Investigating the Case of Software Organization
Mirja Pulkkinen
- Department of Computer Science and Information Systems PO Box 35, Mattilanniemi 2, FI-40014 University of Jyväskylä, mirja.k.pulkkinen@jyu.fi
Abstract
Knowledge management in the software organizations is a key factor, since the knowledge about the process of software development (SWD) and the software product, as well as knowledge about elements in the making of the SW products or services, are the main assets of the software business. The agile software development approaches, rapidly adopted by especially start-up companies, challenge also the incumbent SWD organizations. The aim is not only to limit the time of development, but also to tackle the everlasting problems of knowledge sharing in the software organization and also the end-user involvement in the software requirements development. SWD tool developers are taking good efforts to keep pace with these changing paradigms. This study lays out some essentials of knowledge management in software organizations, and evaluates the knowledge management approaches in three different software organizations that find themselves in different phases of organizational maturity and business development. The resulting analysis model guides SWD organizations to pay due attention to their key assets: providing appropriate support to the evolving knowledge in the SWD and the software business organization.