A Pragmatic Approach to Knowledge Management in Software Maintenance

Knowledge used by maintenance engineers (MEs) in resolving a software maintenance (SM) activity is crucial for any organization. Given this criticality of knowledge, attention must be paid to the effective management of knowledge. One of the major challenges to this is to be able to capture the knowledge and thought processes used by MEs and disseminate it to other MEs. Our paper provides a pragmatic solution to this problem by proposing an integrated knowledge management framework for SM. This framework includes a Tacit Knowledge Management System which will be a powerful knowledge repository. We also provide incentive structures that can be used to effectively motivate MEs in using this KM tool.

[1]  Carolyn B. Seaman,et al.  The information gathering strategies of software maintainers , 2002, International Conference on Software Maintenance, 2002. Proceedings..

[2]  Hans van Vliet,et al.  Software maintenance from a service perspective , 2000, J. Softw. Maintenance Res. Pract..

[3]  Harry M. Sneed.  Measuring the performance of a software maintenance department , 1997, Proceedings. First Euromicro Conference on Software Maintenance and Reengineering.

[4]  Will Venters,et al.  Software engineering: theory and practice , 2006 .

[5]  M. Lindvall,et al.  Knowledge management in software engineering , 2002, IEEE Software.

[6]  Robert L. Glass,et al.  The relationship between theory and practice in software engineering , 1996, CACM.

[7]  Dorothy E. Leidner,et al.  Review: Knowledge Management and Knowledge Management Systems: Conceptual Foundations and Research Issues , 2001, MIS Q..

[8]  Aurora Vizcaíno,et al.  Identifying knowledge management needs in software maintenance groups: a qualitative approach , 2004, Proceedings of the Fifth Mexican International Conference in Computer Science, 2004. ENC 2004..

[9]  Salvatore Mamone,et al.  The IEEE standard for software maintenance , 1994, SOEN.

[10]  J.E. Burge,et al.  Design rationale for software maintenance , 2001, Proceedings 16th Annual International Conference on Automated Software Engineering (ASE 2001).

[11]  N. Schneidewind,et al.  Towards an Ontology of software maintenance , 1999 .

[12]  Bennet P. Lientz,et al.  Software Maintenance Management: A Study of the Maintenance of Computer Application Software in 487 Data Processing Organizations , 1980 .

[13]  Nicolas Anquetil,et al.  Organizing the Knowledge Used in Software Maintenance , 2003, J. Univers. Comput. Sci..

[14]  H. D. Rombach,et al.  THE EXPERIENCE FACTORY , 1999 .

[15]  Ulrike Becker-Kornstaedt,et al.  A concept to support process model maintenance through systematic experience capture , 2002, SEKE '02.

[16]  Prashant Palvia,et al.  Software maintenance management: Changes in the last decade , 1990, J. Softw. Maintenance Res. Pract..

[17]  Robert G. Reynolds,et al.  A tool to support knowledge based software maintenance: the Software Service Bay , 1994, Proceedings Sixth International Conference on Tools with Artificial Intelligence. TAI 94.

[18]  Hans van Vliet,et al.  Software engineering - principles and practice , 1993 .

[19]  Janice Singer,et al.  Towards an ontology of software maintenance , 1999, J. Softw. Maintenance Res. Pract..

[20]  P. R. Balasubramanian,et al.  KnowledgeScope: managing knowledge in context , 2003, Decis. Support Syst..

[21]  Thomas M. Pigoski.  Practical Software Maintenance: Best Practices for Managing Your Software Investment , 1996 .

[22]  Kaj U. Koskinen.  Knowledge Management to Improve Project Communication and Implementation , 2004 .

[23]  Reidar Conradi,et al.  A Survey of Case Studies of the Use of Knowledge Management in Software Engineering , 2002, Int. J. Softw. Eng. Knowl. Eng..

[24]  Morten T. Hansen,et al.  The Search-Transfer Problem: The Role of Weak Ties in Sharing Knowledge across Organization Subunits , 1999 .