Acquiring and sharing tacit knowledge in software development teams: An empirical study

Abstract Context Sharing expert knowledge is a key process in developing software products. Since expert knowledge is mostly tacit, the acquisition and sharing of tacit knowledge along with the development of a transactive memory system (TMS) are significant factors in effective software teams. Objective We seek to enhance our understanding human factors in the software development process and provide support for the agile approach, particularly in its advocacy of social interaction, by answering two questions : How do software development teams acquire and share tacit knowledge ? What roles do tacit knowledge and transactive memory play in successful team performance ? Method A theoretical model describing the process for acquiring and sharing tacit knowledge and development of a TMS through social interaction is presented and a second predictive model addresses the two research questions above. The elements of the predictive model and other demographic variables were incorporated into a larger online survey for software development teams, completed by 46 software SMEs, consisting of 181 individual team members. Results Our results show that team tacit knowledge is acquired and shared directly through good quality social interactions and through the development of a TMS with quality of social interaction playing a greater role than transactive memory. Both TMS and team tacit knowledge predict effectiveness but not efficiency in software teams. Conclusion It is concluded that TMS and team tacit knowledge can differentiate between low- and high-performing teams in terms of effectiveness, where more effective teams have a competitive advantage in developing new products and bringing them to market. As face-to-face social interaction is key, collocated, functionally rich, domain expert teams are advocated rather than distributed teams, though arguably the team manager may be in a separate geographic location provided that there is frequent communication and effective use of issue tracking tools as in agile teams.

[1]  G. G. Stokes.  "J." , 1890, The New Yale Book of Quotations.

[2]  K. Weick,et al.  Collective mind in organizations: Heedful interrelating on flight decks. , 1993 .

[3]  Rory V. O'Connor,et al.  Development of a team measure for tacit knowledge in software development teams , 2009, J. Syst. Softw..

[4]  D. Wegner.  Transactive Memory: A Contemporary Analysis of the Group Mind , 1987 .

[5]  Amy C. Edmondson,et al.  The Local and Variegated Nature of Learning in Organizations: A Group-Level Perspective , 2002, Organ. Sci..

[6]  Richard L. Daft,et al.  Organization Theory and Design , 1983 .

[7]  John Byrne,et al.  Knowledge Networks in New Product Development Projects: A Transactive Memory Perspective , 2005, Inf. Manag..

[8]  C. P. Goodman,et al.  The Tacit Dimension , 2003 .

[9]  Orit Hazzan,et al.  The Agile Manifesto , 2014 .

[10]  W. Wayt Gibbs,et al.  Software's Chronic Crisis , 1994 .

[11]  Morten T. Hansen,et al.  What's your strategy for managing knowledge? , 1999, Harvard business review.

[12]  Rory V. O'Connor,et al.  The situational factors that affect the software development process: Towards a comprehensive reference framework , 2012, Inf. Softw. Technol..

[13]  L. Sproull,et al.  Coordinating Expertise in Software Development Teams , 2000 .

[14]  Brian Henderson-Sellers,et al.  A framework to support the evaluation, adoption and improvement of agile methods in practice , 2008, J. Syst. Softw..

[15]  이영식.  Communication 으로서의 영어교육 , 1986 .

[16]  Grigori Melnik,et al.  Knowledge sharing: agile methods vs. Tayloristic methods , 2003, WET ICE 2003. Proceedings. Twelfth IEEE International Workshops on Enabling Technologies: Infrastructure for Collaborative Enterprises, 2003..

[17]  Mark S. Granovetter.  The Strength of Weak Ties , 1973, American Journal of Sociology.

[18]  R. Barker,et al.  The Role of Communication in Creating and Maintaining a Learning Organization: Preconditions, Indicators, and Disciplines , 1998 .

[19]  M. D. Dunnette.  Handbook of Industrial and Organizational Psychology , 2005 .

[20]  R. Moreland,et al.  Exploring the Performance Benefits of Group Training: Transactive Memory or Improved Communication? , 2000 .

[21]  Debbie Richards,et al.  The graphical interpretation of plausible tacit knowledge flows , 2003, InVis.au.

[22]  J. Hackman.  Group influences on individuals in organizations. , 1992 .

[23]  William H. Bommer,et al.  ON THE INTERCHANGEABILITY OF OBJECTIVE AND SUBJECTIVE MEASURES OF EMPLOYEE PERFORMANCE: A META-ANALYSIS , 1995 .

[24]  Richard J. Bauer,et al.  Knowledge and the firm , 1999 .

[25]  P. M. Podsakoff,et al.  Self-Reports in Organizational Research: Problems and Prospects , 1986 .

[26]  S. Winter,et al.  An Evolutionary Theory of Economic Change.by Richard R. Nelson; Sidney G. Winter , 1987 .

[27]  Kyle Lewis,et al.  Transactive Memory Systems: Current Issues and Future Research Directions , 2011, Organ. Sci..

[28]  C. Chiu,et al.  Discriminative facility in social competence : conditional versus dispositional encoding and monitoring-blunting of information , 1995 .

[29]  Y. Connie Yuan,et al.  Expertise Directory Development, Shared Task Interdependence, and Strength of Communication Network Ties as Multilevel Predictors of Expertise Exchange in Transactive Memory Work Groups , 2010, Commun. Res..

[30]  Ian R. McChesney,et al.  Communication and co-ordination practices in software engineering projects , 2004, Inf. Softw. Technol..

[31]  Hannu Vanharanta,et al.  Tacit knowledge acquisition and sharing in a project work context , 2003 .

[32]  J. Pfeffer,et al.  A social information processing approach to job attitudes and task design. , 1978, Administrative science quarterly.

[33]  Scott B. MacKenzie,et al.  Common method biases in behavioral research: a critical review of the literature and recommended remedies. , 2003, The Journal of applied psychology.

[34]  D. Leonard,et al.  The Role of Tacit Knowledge in Group Innovation , 1998 .

[35]  E. Glasersfeld.  Radical Constructivism: A Way of Knowing and Learning. Studies in Mathematics Education Series: 6. , 1995 .

[36]  M. Grant,et al.  Communities of practice. , 2020, Health progress.

[37]  P. Kidwell,et al.  The mythical man-month: Essays on software engineering , 1996, IEEE Annals of the History of Computing.

[38]  Eric L. Lesser,et al.  Chapter 8 – Communities of Practice, Social Capital and Organizational Knowledge* , 2000 .

[39]  Deborah G. . Ancona,et al.  Bridging the Boundary: External Activity and Performance in Organizational Teams. , 1992 .

[40]  Judith S. Olson,et al.  Distance Matters , 2000, Hum. Comput. Interact..

[41]  Barry W. Boehm,et al.  Software Engineering Economics , 1993, IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering.

[42]  J.-C. Spender,et al.  The dynamics of individual and organizational knowledge , 1998 .

[43]  Jon-Arild Johannessen,et al.  Mismanagement of tacit knowledge: the importance of tacit knowledge, the danger of information technology, and what to do about it , 2001, Int. J. Inf. Manag..

[44]  R. Grant,et al.  Knowledge and the firm: Overview , 1996 .

[45]  Grigori Melnik,et al.  Direct verbal communication as a catalyst of agile knowledge sharing , 2004, Agile Development Conference.

[46]  Shawn L. Berman,et al.  Tacit Knowledge as a Source of Competitive Advantage in the National Basketball Association , 2002 .

[47]  M. Fischetti.  Working knowledge. , 2003, Scientific American.

[49]  Daniela E. Damian,et al.  Essential communication practices for Extreme Programming in a global software development team , 2006, Inf. Softw. Technol..

[50]  T. D. Wilson,et al.  The nonsense of knowledge management , 2002, Inf. Res..

[51]  Beverley G. Hope,et al.  Author's Personal Copy the Journal of Systems and Software Coordination in Co-located Agile Software Development Projects , 2022 .

[52]  T. Lechler.  Social Interaction: A Determinant of Entrepreneurial Team Venture Success , 2001 .

[53]  S. Messick.  Validity of Psychological Assessment: Validation of Inferences from Persons' Responses and Performances as Scientific Inquiry into Score Meaning. Research Report RR-94-45. , 1994 .

[54]  野中 郁次郎,et al.  The knowledge-creating company , 2008 .

[55]  Patricia J. Guinan,et al.  Enabling Software Development Team Performance During Requirements Definition: A Behavioral Versus Technical Approach , 1998, Inf. Syst. Res..

[56]  S. Winter,et al.  An evolutionary theory of economic change , 1983 .

[57]  P. Berger,et al.  Social Construction of Reality , 1991, The SAGE International Encyclopedia of Mass Media and Society.

[58]  Robert E. Kraut,et al.  Coordination in software development , 1995, CACM.

[59]  Pekka Abrahamsson,et al.  ‘Lots done, more to do’: the current state of agile systems development research , 2009, Eur. J. Inf. Syst..

[60]  John Shotter,et al.  Theory as therapy: Wittgensteinian reminders for reflective theorizing in organization and management theory , 2011 .

[61]  Scott Fernie,et al.  Knowledge Sharing: Context, Controversy and Confusion , 2003 .

[62]  Laurie L. Levesque,et al.  Cognitive divergence and shared mental models in software development project teams , 2001 .

[63]  Leonard D. Goodstein,et al.  Team Building: Issues and Alternatives , 1978 .

[64]  J. C. Henderson,et al.  Managing I/S Design Teams: A Control Theories Perspective , 1992 .

[65]  R. Moreland.  Transactive memory: Learning who knows what in work groups and organizations. , 1999 .

[66]  Haridimos Tsoukas,et al.  Do we really understand tacit knowledge , 2002 .

[67]  Marjorie A. Lyles,et al.  The Blackwell handbook of organizational learning and knowledge management , 2003 .

[68]  Alok Mishra,et al.  Impact of physical ambiance on communication, collaboration and coordination in agile software development: An empirical evaluation , 2012, Inf. Softw. Technol..

[69]  T. Wall,et al.  On the validity of subjective measures of company performance , 2004 .

[70]  U. Yeliz Eseryel,et al.  The Role of Face-to-Face Meetings in Technology-Supported Self-Organizing Distributed Teams , 2007, IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication.

[71]  Gary P. Pisano,et al.  Learning How and Learning What: Effects of Tacit and Codified Knowledge on Performance Improvement Following Technology Adoption , 2003, Decis. Sci..

[72]  A. Hollingshead.  Communication, Learning, and Retrieval in Transactive Memory Systems☆☆☆ , 1998 .

[73]  Robert L. Glass,et al.  Building Quality Software , 1991 .

[74]  B. Mullen,et al.  Theories of group behavior , 1987 .

[75]  E. Salas,et al.  Team decision making in complex environments. , 1993 .

[76]  J. Levine,et al.  Shared Cognition in-Organizations: The Management of Knowledge , 1999 .

[77]  Pär J. Ågerfalk,et al.  Flexible and distributed information systems development , 2006 .

[78]  Fred P. Brooks,et al.  The Mythical Man-Month , 1975, Reliable Software.

[79]  B. Bahli,et al.  The role of knowledge creation in adopting extreme programming model: an empirical study , 2005, 2005 International Conference on Information and Communication Technology.

[80]  Tore Dybå,et al.  Empirical studies of agile software development: A systematic review , 2008, Inf. Softw. Technol..

[81]  R. Moreland,et al.  Group Versus Individual Training and Group Performance: The Mediating Role of Transactive Memory , 1995 .

[82]  J. Hackman,et al.  The design of work teams , 1987 .

[83]  J. Pinto,et al.  Project team communication and cross-functional cooperation in new program development , 1990 .

[84]  Kyle Lewis.  Measuring transactive memory systems in the field: scale development and validation. , 2003, The Journal of applied psychology.

[85]  E. Salas,et al.  Shared mental models in expert team decision making. , 1993 .

[86]  Pär J. Ågerfalk,et al.  Introduction to the Special Issue - Flexible and Distributed Information Systems Development: State of the Art and Research Challenges , 2009, Inf. Syst. Res..

[87]  Elena L. Grigorenko,et al.  Practical Intelligence in Everyday Life , 2000 .

[88]  Venugopal Balijepally,et al.  Theoretical reflections on agile development methodologies , 2007, Commun. ACM.

[89]  P. Thompson,et al.  Ignorant Theory and Knowledgeable Workers: Interrogating the Connections between Knowledge, Skills and Services , 2001 .