| The Logica Use Case: Managing Process Knowledge in Projects |
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In current technologies, this is quest for knowledge is supported by the use of simple document types written in standard productivity tools like Word and Excel. The contents of these documents are created and maintained by a few managers whose responsibilities cover the contents of the documents. For example, the software project manager is responsible for the project plan and it is her responsibility to ensure that the project plan is realistic and that all developers, customers, users, and other stakeholders are committed to the plan or to modify the plan accordingly. The software process engineer, as another example, is responsible for the quality of the descriptions of processes to be performed by development projects and the process descriptions should have a high quality reflecting the company's policies and their best experiences. Wanted: Flexibility in multi-user scenarios The problem with the current technologies is that, even though the documents are in a shared directory, the writing of these documents is centralised and rests on the shoulders of the responsible manager. Document quality is ensured by systematic and organised reviewing where knowledgeable colleagues comment and eventually approve the documents. While approval is needed for core documents, it also makes changing documents not as flexible as desired. The documentation of software processes and their performance in projects is a complex undertaking (see figure). The documents contain knowledge that is difficult to collect, write, and commit to. The documents change (sometimes even radically) as a project progresses and events, ideas, and actions unfold during the project. To improve the quality and usefulness of the documented software processes and their performance in projects, the vision for Logica is to employ a wiki technology for writing, storing, reading and retrieving the knowledge which is currently in long and complicated documents. The knowledge will be split into several pages and the complex relationships will be created and maintained as links and with tagging of pages' contents and links. This will allow for a much more collaborative and decentralised writing and maintenance of contents. It will also allow for a more flexible change and approval of contents. Many content items, links and tags come directly from templates. A template is more than just a single page; it is a set of pages forming a complete framework for a software process. This could for example be for a project plan covering issues such as schedule, work breakdown structure, resources, commitments, etc. Putting collaboration in its context The structure of links and tags is so complex that the users will be supported in linking to the right content and tagging with the right tags. The user will not have to remember and recall names of content items and tags, but will have a context-dependent set to choose from. The context-dependent form of interface extends to many other areas of interaction between the collaborative writers and readers as the vision for the KiWi system at Logica is that which pages, links, tags get displayed depends on who the user is, her project history and the history of interaction. The user may be a project manager for a particular project with a certain track record on several past projects. The interaction history should reflect how the user at a micro-level has interacted with the system lately, e.g., in terms of common searches, common pages read, common pages written, linked, tagged, etc. Retrieving history of many kinds will altogether be very useful for Logica and it does not exist in the current technology. Retrieving history based on tags will be a significant advancement. The tag structure can be elaborate and should cover all knowledge domains including process management, project management, requirements management, quality assurance and similar process areas. It should also cover customers' domains like accounting, administration, and other domains for which Logica delivers software solutions. It should for example be possible to retrieve pages concerned with similar projects, technologies, or conditions, etc. The vision: beyond documents The vision is that pages will be dynamic far beyond the current documents. The ambition for Logica is first that much more knowledge will find its way into the system by increasing the affordance for all involved software managers and developers. Second, the complex relationships between pages and contents will be used to increase the awareness of changes, dependencies and approvals. Any relevant change to a page should either propagate directly to related pages or the writers should be alerted that further changes are necessary and what the approval status is. All in all, the expected benefits for Logica will be
Next article in this section: The Sun Use Case: Managing Software Development Knowledge
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In software development projects there is an ongoing struggle with keeping track of knowledge, with exploring and exploiting the knowledge we already have, and with creating and validating new knowledge gained through software development projects. Carried out in collaboration with Logica, Logica is a leading IT and business services company, employing 39, 000 people across 36 countries, this use case is going to provide relevant insights for project managers in all areas of the knowledge intensive industries.