Knowledge Management and Software Development Organization: What Is the Challenge?

Abstract

Software development organization (SDO) is a kind of knowledge-intensive business and their large majority is small and medium enterprise (SME) facing similar challenges of large ones. The diversity and complexity of the SDO environment makes knowledge the fundamental element in the software development process, which strengthens the importance of an effective knowledge management process. The software development process involves multidisciplinary teams, and the various working meetings that occur during a project are conducive to generate and share a lot of knowledge, in particular tacit knowledge. The use of a knowledge management process that enables to manage tacit knowledge will define the difference between a good SDO performance and the best SDO performance. This chapter aims to present an exploratory study based on literature review, with the aim of identifying the main challenge of knowledge management in the SDO context. The authors also aim to address some new research directions.