A Knowledge Management Framework for Agile Software Development Teams R.K. Kavitha Assistant Professor, Department of Computer Applications Kumaraguru College of Technology, Coimbatore, India
[email protected] M.S. Irfan Ahmed Professor & Head, Center for Computer Applications VLB College of Engineering and Technology, Coimbatore, India
[email protected] Abstract: Software development is a knowledge-intensive activity and its success depends heavily on the developers’ knowledge and experience. Knowledge is considered as the main competitive asset of the organization. One of the objectives of knowledge management (KM) is to improve productivity by effective knowledge sharing and transfer. Agile software development has put a new focus on the question of how to share knowledge among members of software development teams. In contrast to heavy-weight, document-centric approaches, agile approaches rely on face-to-face communication for knowledge transfer. Pair programming is one such practice with the idea to share the work specific knowledge across the development teams through pair rotation. This paper introduces work on developing a framework for capturing the tacit knowledge shared among the practitioners of agile software development methodologies. This approach facilitates the organizational learning process by capturing and maintaining the necessary knowledge.
Software knowledge is stored in documents, process, practices, technologies, and project artifacts. Software’s developed using traditional methods are well documented whereas agile methods support working software rather comprehensive documentation. In traditional software development methodologies, the knowledge is explicit and can be easily captured whereas the agile methodology deals with tacit knowledge. Tacit knowledge is stored in the minds of people in the form of memory, skills, experience, education, imagination and creativity [15]. One of the greatest challenges of knowledge organizations is to extract tacit knowledge possessed by their knowledge employees, so as to apply the right knowledge at the right place when needed and to encourage innovation.
Keywords: Knowledge Management (KM), Pair Programming, Agile Software Development
I. INTRODUCTION Knowledge Management has been the subject of increasing focus over the last several years. Literature and research on the topic has grown as companies and organizations have come to realize that success is often determined by one’s ability to create, disseminate, and embody knowledge in products and services. This realization has led to increased interest in examining the ways in which knowledge can be effectively created, identified, codified, disseminated, and retained. The field of Knowledge Management has emerged to address this need. There are several knowledge frameworks that describe knowledge-related practices. The organizational knowledge is embedded in people, systems, procedures and products. Knowledge workers are required to improve their work on a daily basis in a process that cumulates into a significant improvement in performance for the entire enterprise.
Fig1. Software Knowledge Agile software methodologies have some inbuilt practices that facilitate the transmission of experiences and knowledge inside the organization. Pair programming is such a practice that holds promise for overcoming some of the challenges faced by Knowledge Management [12]. In pair programming,
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two programmers work side-by-side at one computer collaborating on the same design, algorithm, code, or test. The continual interaction between pair programmers would seem to provide an environment that promotes knowledge sharing and collaborative knowledge discovery. Additionally, through pair rotation, in which pairs change partners fairly often, tacit knowledge might be spread more effectively through face-toface communication than by documentation, databases, or other means. The practice of Pair Programming helps to mange knowledge to a good extent. Even, other ways of exploring tacit knowledge needs to be considered. In this paper we propose a framework for managing the knowledge generated by agile software developers.
continuously and informally amongst each other for mutual benefit [13]. These CoPs are perfectly positioned to support knowledge management efforts. They are continuously capturing and sharing relevant knowledge with each other. III. KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT CHALLENGES IN AGILE SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT The absence of explicit documentation in agile software development leads to a number of problems: • •
II. WORKING OF KM
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Knowledge Management is the collection of processes that govern the creation, dissemination, and utilization of knowledge. It is a range of practices used in an organization to collect and share knowledge to help people get their job done. For the learnings to be retrieved and reused, they need to be qualified and codified so that they are accessible and searchable. Furthermore, knowledge management can also include strategies to foster a culture of information sharing and the implementation of tools that make it easier for employees to share their learnings and, in turn, to learn from each other.
• • •
Knowledge repository is a database that organizes and makes available to all employees, the basic information about the products, services, customers, and business processes of the organization. The repository serves as a • Directory of knowledge sources that can be used by employees to locate specific knowledge when needed • Directory of learning sources that can be used by employees to find out where they may learn new knowledge and skills • Groupware that facilitates communication and collaboration among employees It is found that nearly 40% of organizational knowledge is stored in employees' heads. This knowledge will be useful in many ways to the organization and supports reusability, learning, decision making etc. It is lost when people move to newer roles, or leaves the organization. KM requires effective colloboration among the members of the team. For an organization to do knowledge management more effectively, one way is to leverage the Communities of Practice (CoPs) within its organization. Communities of practice are groups of people who are informally bound to one another by exposure to a common class of problems. These groups share their learnings and knowledge resources
Experts find themselves spending much time in repeatedly answering the same questions Members find themselves in situations where they know that they have had a certain problem before, but cannot remember its solution Knowledge is lost as soon as experienced developers leave the project or company Informal communication cannot serve as a record Less support for reusability Less contribution to organizational knowledge
The main challenges of KM in agile software development are to transfer implicit knowledge to explicit knowledge, as well as to transfer explicit knowledge from individuals to groups within the organization [4]. The generated knowledge needs to be stored in a repository. More commitment is needed from the practitioner’s side in sharing knowledge. Another issue is to know how far the stored knowledge is used. Effective Knowledge Management through Pair Programming Pair programming consists of two programmers working sideby-side at one computer, collaborating on the same design, algorithm, code, or test. One programmer is the driver, controlling the input device to produce the design or code. The other programmer is the navigator, continuously and actively examining the driver’s work. The navigator watches for defects, thinks of alternatives, looks up resources, considers strategic implications, and asks questions. Through these activities, the navigator contributes by identifying tactical and strategic deficiencies in the design or code. Every so often, the driver and navigator switch roles. This allows the programmers to vary their work routine, learn and practice new skills, and contribute to the work in more than one manner. There is no set rule as to how often the programmers should switch roles. It should occur at a natural transition point in the design or coding activity. Sometimes this may be after only one or two hours, or sometimes it may
be after days. In organizations where there is more pair, pairs often rotate partners after the completion or subtask. Pair rotation allows the programmers different areas of the system, and learn from the different partners.
than one of a task to learn skills of
The pair programming approach lends itself to several potential benefits. By being under the scrutiny of two programmers at all times, the design and code is under continuous review, potentially leading to higher defectremoval rates [1]. The combined strengths of two programmers can potentially enable them to solve difficult problems more quickly than if they had worked alone. By pairing, programmers can learn skills from each other and communicate more closely. And, exposing multiple programmers to each piece of code potentially reduces the impact of losing staff. Developers tend not to document task-related knowledge, contextual knowledge, and social resources generated through pair programming for many reasons, such as being overburdened with other tasks or they may think that the knowledge may be irrelevant or of no interest to others [9]. To ensure knowledge shared among a pair is accessible to the entire team, XP recommends pairs be rotated from time to time which may not be very effective always. Even though Pair Programming is an excellent knowledge management strategy by itself, it would be beneficial to have some means to capture and store such knowledge. The following research questions are outlined from the issues discussed above. 1. 2. 3.
How knowledge management is achieved in agile software development with least documentation? To which extent agile practices like pair programming contributes to KM effectively? How to capture the tacit knowledge generated during informal communication?
transport, integration and repositories [20]. A Soft-System Knowledge Management approach for KM system development was proposed to ensure a fit between the organizational needs on new product development (NPD) and KM initiatives [5]. This framework consists of three main components: Knowledge sharing methods, Organizational level and Key Enablers A KMSOS2oD Framework is formulated especially to support software development life cycle for Open Source Systems and consists of five main components: layers, components, process, knowledge, and CoP [2]. Researchers have proposed several tools to better support collocated and distributed agile software development. The tools are mainly intended for application sharing. For communication and collaboration among team members, tools like e-mail, newsgroups, and instant messengers are used. Real-time collaboration tools like audio/video conferencing and application sharing facilitate the informal and spontaneous social interactions necessary for sharing tacit knowledge [3]. Wiki technology enables any users to access, create, organize, and update any web pages in real-time using only a web browser. This technology supports asynchronous collaboration and it only allows users to capture information in an unstructured format like text and graphics. Several plugins like JSPWiki and MASE provides a process support environment tailored for agile development teams [6]. MILOS can provide each developer with a basic to-do list application; Jazz Sangam is ex-tended from Sangam, an Eclipse plug-in for distributed pair programming. It helps the pair programmers to code effectively and has features like defect tracking, instant chat etc. Several studies were carried out in industries and academics to study the impact of Pair programming on factors like productivity, quality of software, team work, enhanced learning etc. Only less research considering pair programming as knowledge management factor has been carried out.
IV. RELATED WORK Several frameworks exist for managing software knowledge generated especially while using traditional methodologies. A framework for KM Support suggests two important considerations in managing knowledge [19] • Where the knowledge resides and • The extent to how the knowledge is structured. A KMS architecture has been proposed consisting of seven layers, which are interface, access, collaborative, application,
From the existing studies we come to understand that there exist some tools and techniques for managing software knowledge. So far no specific framework that integrates tools and methods for addressing the tacit knowledge generated during agile software development has been suggested. V. PROPOSED FRAMEWORK FOR CAPTURING TACIT KNOWLEDGE Needs and benefits of capturing knowledge:
• • • •
Knowledge captured from informal communication can contribute to organizational knowledge Experiences/ knowledge about a work can be made known to other members of the project team whenever needed Stored knowledge supports reusability Members will be committed and recognized
This paper introduces work on developing a framework for capturing and distribution of knowledge generated while using agile software development methodologies in which the team members may either be collocated or distributed. The approach facilitates an incremental organizational learning process to capture and maintain knowledge on what documentation/information is actually needed. The framework describes a suite of integrated tools that provides support for capturing, storing and disseminating knowledge
The knowledge generated during software development will be of use to all the project stakeholders. Storing information does not guarantee that others can find it. The members should be able to successfully retrieve the information from a repository that combines structured and unstructured data. Efficient query mechanisms can be helpful in easy retrieval of required data.
Real-time collaboration tools like emails, news groups, NetMeeting facilitate the social interaction necessary for sharing tacit knowledge. Fig.3 Proposed Framework for capturing tacit knowledge during agile software development VI. CONCLUSION AND SCOPE FOR FURTHER WORK
Fig.2 Tacit Knowledge Enablers
The proposed framework enables informal knowledge sharing. The members work usually in a collaborative environment connected by internet / intranet. The framework provides the developers with a set of tools that helps in collecting the knowledge. Experiences generated related to coding, debugging, logic, practices, facts, proof of a concept etc are entered via an interface by the member and is collected in the experience recorder. The idea map helps to store unstructured information related to the project like work notes, to do list etc. Information can also be posted on a discussion forum. The information collected by the experience recorder, idea map and forums can be structured and stored in the knowledge repository.
This paper is based on the assumption that KM is a vital part of software projects. Specifically, our work aims to examine the integration of KM and agile software development which helps to overcome the existing difficulties when introduced and applied. The pairing of KM and agile software development has been acknowledged by various researchers. In this paper we have presented a framework to capture the tacit knowledge generated while adopting agile software development methodologies. The framework shall provide support for agile practices and overcome the challenges in organizational knowledge sharing. Immediate future work is to study how pair programming contributes to KM in practice and to implement and evaluate the suggested framework. A further study of the various knowledge management metrics for agile software development teams will be conducted to understand how far the stored knowledge will be useful to the developers and the organization. REFERENCES [1] V.Venkatesan, A.Sankar, “Adoption of Pair Programming in the Academic Environment with Different Degree of Complexity in Students Perspective– An Empirical Study”, International Journal of Engineering Science and Technology, Vol. 2(9), 2010, 4791-4800
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