NO-7491 Trondheim, Norway. Abstract. Domain knowledge is a crucial ingredient for companies developing software, yet little attention is paid on how to gain ...
Using Open Space Technology as a method to Share Domain Knowledge Torgeir Dingsøyr1, Finn Olav Bjørnsson2 1
SINTEF Information and Communication Technology NO-7465 Trondheim, Norway 2 Dept. of Information and Communication Systems, Norwegian University of Science and Technology NO-7491 Trondheim, Norway
Abstract. Domain knowledge is a crucial ingredient for companies developing software, yet little attention is paid on how to gain such knowledge in the software engineering literature. We here propose a study on using one largegroup intervention technique – Open Space Technology – to increase the domain knowledge of developers in a software project.
1. Introduction Many studies report on the importance of requirements in the software development process, and the importance of getting requirements right in the early stages of development [1]. The requirement specification is a negotiation process between user needs, technical possibilities and cost, where stakeholders learn about other stakeholder’s expectations for the new system to be developed. There have been many studies in software engineering on the process of defining requirements, or requirement engineering. However, studies also indicate that in order to deliver software products with high quality for a low cost, it is important that developers have an understanding of the domain where the application is to work [2]. This suggests that there might be other needs than agreeing on requirements that are important in first encounters with a software customer. We will refer to this as increasing the domain knowledge of the people who are to participate in the software development project. From organization science, a range of methods known as large-group interventions or interactions exist. The aim of these methods are to [3]: 1) enhance the amount of information brought to bear on a problem, 2) build commitment to problem definitions and solutions, 3) fuse planning and implementation and 4) shorten the time needed to conceive and execute major projects. This position paper suggests a study of one particular large-group intervention technique, which might help increase the domain knowledge, namely Open Space Technology. We now briefly describe Open Space Technology, and then describe a proposed study to investigate how this technique can impact domain knowledge in a project.
3. Open Space Technology: What is it? Open Space Technology [4] is a group process where all stakeholders are invited to discuss a topic of common concern. It differs from other group processes in that the topic is defined on an overall-level. When arriving, participants are presented to the overall-topic, and asked to identify sub-topics they themselves are interested in. From suggestions a large schedule with topic, time and place is made for the whole event, and people are told to participate in discussing the topics where they think they can contribute. People who have suggested topics act as moderators in their sessions, and are responsible for writing a short minute about the discussion. Such an event can be organized for a large number of people, and usually lasts from one to three days. The Open Space Technology makes people from many environments find each other to discuss topics of common interest. It also makes the participants themselves responsible for the outcome of the event. According to [3] there are four assumptions underlying the Open Space Technology method: 1. “Events must focus on an issue of concern, and when the purpose becomes clear, the appropriate event and project structures will follow as a natural expression or embodiment of the purpose.” 2. “People can and will self-organize based on their interests. Everyone has the right and responsibility to put items on the agenda. Everyone has creative potential, and his or her energy can be tapped. Groups will generate their own leadership.” 3. “Experts and analysts are needed among the participants. There should be no expert help from outside the group.” 4. “You can work with the chaos of these events. It represents an opportunity for growth, organizational learning, and improved effectiveness.” The method has a very optimistic view of people. There is a basic belief that good things will happen if people get together to discuss topics of mutual interest. In addition to the four assumptions and the optimistic philosophy behind the method, there are four principles and one law that govern the application of Open Space Technology. The basic law is the so-called “Law of Two Feet” it states that: “Participants have the right and responsibility to use their feet to go to a productive and meaningful conversation or place for themselves.” The four principles are: 1) Whoever comes are the right people, 2) Whatever happens is the only thing that could have happened, 3) Whenever it starts is the right time, 4) Whenever it is over, it is over. 3.1 Open Space Technology: Why use it? The formulation of good requirements in a development project depends on good understanding of the project domain [2]. Not having a good understanding of the domain can lead to incomplete requirements and a lot of extra work during implementation when this becomes apparent. However, capturing the right domain knowledge can be tricky as neither the developers nor their customers know exactly what information might be critical to the development. The developers lack the necessary domain knowledge to ask the right questions, and the customers, or domain
experts, lack the necessary software engineering knowledge to know what information might be crucial for the developers. A lot of information is usually captured through structured requirement engineering, yet there is still a risk that some problems might be overlooked due to poor domain knowledge. Our suggestion of using Open Space Technology in the beginning of a development project aims at rectifying this by allowing developers and domain experts to mingle freely and discuss topics in a far more unstructured way than is usually done in requirement engineering. Hopefully this will result in creative dialogue, which surfaces topics and problem areas that would otherwise be overlooked. Bryson and Anderson [3] compare seven large-scale interaction methods. These knowledge management methods are compared along the scales in figure 1 of (1) their usefulness in dealing with different clarity of mission, vision and goal and (2) the sophistication level of the tools needed to use the method. Open Space Technology is categorized as being good for unclear mission, vision and goal, and only needing a simple sophistication level of the tools to use. This fits well with our need for a simple technique for use early in the requirement phase when the goals of the project are still somewhat unclear. Sophisticated
Strategic Options Development Analysis
Sophistication of problem and solution framing and analysis tools
Strategic Choice Future Search/ Search Conference Technology of Participation Real Time Strategic Planning
Simple Clear
Open Space Technology Unclear
Mission, vision and goal clarity at beginning
Fig 1. Suitability of Large Scale Group Interventions, taken from [3]. We think this process can be an interesting one to try out to make developers know the domain better. Instead of only letting developers get into the domain through project managers or internal domain experts who often participate in the requirement process, this process lets them communicate directly with users on what the system should do. It also lets them get contact points in various parts of the receiving organization, and let them take part in different discussions – which should lead to new discussions when working internally.
3.2 Open Space Technology: Strengths and Weaknesses The underlying positivistic assumptions and philosophy of Open Space Technology is its major strength and at the same time its major weakness. The method makes for flexible agendas. This is at the expense of control by positional leaders of the group or organization. This is a critical point because project managers might not want to employ a method over which they have little or no control. However we argue that it is exactly this kind of flexible method that will allow points of interest to emerge that might not otherwise have emerged in a more structured process. The method facilitates dialogue and organizational learning and in so doing enhances the human performance. It also gives the participants a sense of responsibility and ownership for their ideas. On the other hand this can only be achieved if the participants take responsibility for their own actions and involvement. It is also crucial that the participants are open and that they do not have advance expectations about the outcome. Therefore it is vital that the participation is voluntary and not forced upon them in any way as this might put a damper on the process. Given that the challenges of employing the method can be met, we feel that it can provide a stimulating setting in which to discuss the upcoming project. It will give the developers and their customer a chance to meet face to face instead of communicating through certain key contact persons, and hopefully the developers will gain enough domain knowledge to avoid large overruns due to faulty requirement engineering. Open Space Technology is not as costly in terms of needing a lot of expert facilitators as other large-group interaction methods might require. The facilitator’s role is reduced to hosting the event and solving logistical problems. The real cost is in term of the time spent by the participants. In order to justify such a method we have to have more data on how much a company can save on hosting such an event as compared to budget overruns due to misunderstandings that could have been avoided by better knowledge of the domain of the customer.
4. Suggested research project In the suggested research project, we are interested in investigating how the technique Open Space Technology functions in a small software company in order to give developers insight in domain knowledge, and if the technique makes them better able to find domain knowledge after the requirement process is over. We intend to investigate this question by organizing an Open Space Technology workshop for a development project – involving both user representatives and developers for a half-day or one-day event. We will ask the project leader of the development project to briefly introduce the project, and describe some of the main challenges. We will then ask participants to suggest topics they are interested in discussing, which relate either development or use of the software system in question. The participants will then discuss the topics according to the Open Space Technology principles.
We will observe the discussions that arise in the workshop, and later interview the participants from the software company about their thoughts about the process. We will ask them to compare the process with work done in other projects. When the project completes, we will study the amount of re-work due to domain misunderstandings and compare this to another similar project in the company. We will focus on one of the four main outcomes of large-group interventions mentioned earlier, namely to what degree such a process is able to enhance the amount of relevant domain knowledge for a project.
Acknowledgement This work was conducted in the Software Process Improvement through Knowledge and Experience (SPIKE) project, supported by the Research Council of Norway under grant 156701/220.
References [1] Marjo Kauppinen, Matti Vartiainen, Jyrki Kontio, Sari Kujala, and Reijo Sulonen, “Implementing requirements engineering processes through organizations: success factors and challenges,” Information and Software Technology, vol. 46, pp. 937 - 953, 2004. [2] Amrit Tiwana, “An empirical study of the effect of knowledge integration on software development projects,” Information and Software Technology, vol. 46, pp. 899 - 906, 2004. [3] John M. Bryson, Sharon R. Anderson, “Applying Large-group Interaction Methods in the Planning and Implementation of Major Change Efforts”, Public Administration Review, vol 60, no 2, pp. 143 – 162, 2000. [4] Barbara Benedict Bunker and Billie T. Alban, Large Group Interventions. San Francisco, California: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1997.
