Towards Knowledge-Intensive Software Engineering

Postprin

Understanding the role of knowledge management in software development: a case study in very small companies

Software and systems engineering is distinct from other forms of engineering as it deals with an intangible product, where the progress in construction is not explicitly visible and team members often rely on the docu- mentation of others to follow and review progress. Furthermore unlike traditional engineering disciplines, there is no single standardized unified process. The role of knowledge management in the software engineering literature is becoming more evident, as the software development activity is essentially a human knowledge intensive activity and is seen by many as a key factor. This paper discusses the role of software development knowledge management within software development process and specifically how software development knowledge is managed in software development in order to support software process improvement and the role of knowledge management in this. The authors present the results of a study of knowledge management process practices in very small software companies and discusses these under the major identified issues of: Communication; Learning and sharing; Documentation and Knowledge management process and com- mitment. The findings in this study give an insight towards knowledge management practices as they relate to software development process practices in very small companies and the important factors that must be considered to preserve knowledge and quality software

Characterizing knowledge utilization during software design process using PKAMI model

Abundant of studies and intellectual efforts have been invested particularly in determining the influencing and inhibiting factors towards effective knowledge transfer. The intriguing aspects of knowledge transfer have enabled it to be studied and examined from diverse angles and multi perspectives. Many however, tend to overlook the essence of effective knowledge transfer that is, the utilization of knowledge being transferred. For knowledge-intensive environment such as software development project, knowledge integration which encompasses activities of transferring various knowledge across different software processes often takes place. Best case scenario would be a generous opportunity to learn from each other, creating new knowledge and ultimately delivering quality software. But many failed to reap its advantage resultant from its impulsive nature and lack of methods to verify use of knowledge when the transferhappens. Alarmed by this situation, we proposed PKAMI, a model for characterizing knowledge utilization thus enables the verification of effective knowledge transfer. In our previous study we focused into software architecture development. In this paper, we attempt to investigate knowledge transfer a step further, which is in the process of designing the software to be developed for a project, carried out by our students and supervised by our industrial partners. Our aim is to determine the occurrence of effective knowledge transfer by characterizing the knowledge use during software design process. We believe that our effort put forth in this research would be an extremely significant contribution to software engineering as well as knowledge management research

Automated analysis of feature models: Quo vadis?

Feature models have been used since the 90's to describe software product lines as a way of reusing common parts in a family of software systems. In 2010, a systematic literature review was published summarizing the advances and settling the basis of the area of Automated Analysis of Feature Models (AAFM). From then on, different studies have applied the AAFM in different domains. In this paper, we provide an overview of the evolution of this field since 2010 by performing a systematic mapping study considering 423 primary sources. We found six different variability facets where the AAFM is being applied that define the tendencies: product configuration and derivation; testing and evolution; reverse engineering; multi-model variability-analysis; variability modelling and variability-intensive systems. We also confirmed that there is a lack of industrial evidence in most of the cases. Finally, we present where and when the papers have been published and who are the authors and institutions that are contributing to the field. We observed that the maturity is proven by the increment in the number of journals published along the years as well as the diversity of conferences and workshops where papers are published. We also suggest some synergies with other areas such as cloud or mobile computing among others that can motivate further research in the future.Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad TIN2015-70560-RJunta de Andalucía TIC-186

International conference on software engineering and knowledge engineering: Session chair

The Thirtieth International Conference on Software Engineering and Knowledge Engineering (SEKE 2018) will be held at the Hotel Pullman, San Francisco Bay, USA, from July 1 to July 3, 2018. SEKE2018 will also be dedicated in memory of Professor Lofti Zadeh, a great scholar, pioneer and leader in fuzzy sets theory and soft computing. The conference aims at bringing together experts in software engineering and knowledge engineering to discuss on relevant results in either software engineering or knowledge engineering or both. Special emphasis will be put on the transference of methods between both domains. The theme this year is soft computing in software engineering & knowledge engineering. Submission of papers and demos are both welcome

Culture dimensions in software development industry: The effects of mentoring

Software development is a human centric and sociotechnical activity and like all human activities is influenced by cultural factors. However, software engineering is being further affected because of the globalization in software development. As a result, cultural diversity is influencing software development and its outcomes. The software engineering industry, a very intensive industry regarding human capital, is facing a new era in which software development personnel must adapt to multicultural work environments. Today, many organizations present a multicultural workforce which needs to be managed. This paper analyzes the influence of culture on mentoring relationships within the software engineering industry. Two interesting findings can be concluded from our study: (1) cultural differences affect both formal and informal mentoring, and (2) technical competences are not improved when implementing mentoring relationships