In software business the pressure to continuously develop business processes in order to stay competitive is great. The productivity of companies is heavily founded on the effectiveness of their software development processes. It has been stated that component-based-software-engineering (CBSE) is one way to increase the effectiveness of software development [see e.g. 20] in several technically oriented studies, as it decreases the amount of overlapping work.
However, the renewal of software development processes towards CBSE is not only a technical issue; it is very much a general management problem, too. In this paper, we study the renewal of software development processes from the business point of view, concentrating on knowledge management (KM) perspective. We argue that KM is a highly relevant perspective to the phenomenon, as a software development process is typically characterized as knowledge intensive and also the outcome of the process, software, is very much a knowledge intensive product. Furthermore, the renewal of software development processes is usually a rather extensive organizational change, in which the role of effective flow of knowledge and sharing knowledge is essential [see e.g. 7; 31].
The objective of this paper is to identify the central KM challenges in the renewal of software development
process. By presenting possible solutions to these challenges, we aim to provide some helpful insights for managers dealing with the challenge of renewing software development processes. Furthermore, we aim to contribute to KM literature by empirically examining typical KM challenges in a specific research context, the software business. However, as we deal with a qualitative case study, the results of the research are not directly generalizable in other contexts.
The central issues in this study are software business and the software development process as representing the specific context of this research. The renewal of software process means in this study an intended shift towards CBSE. Theoretically this paper is based on business and management literature, especially on KM literature. The main idea of KM is to make the reuse of existing resources effective [29].
The paper is structured as follows: The introduction of the research context, i.e. the software business and special characteristics of component-based-software-engineering, starts the paper. It is typical of a case study that the borders between the phenomenon and its context are hard to define, thus the context-bound nature of this study is highlighted by this order of discussion in the paper. Furthermore, the context of the study also directs the theoretical discussion, which follows right after the presentation of the context. In the theoretical discussion, the application of KM thoughts in the context of componentization is emphasized. After this, the research methods and the case study are presented. The paper ends with presenting the results of the study and some conclusive thoughts.