Knowledge management in software design: a tool and a trial

The paper describes experiences in applying a knowledge management tool, called CODE, to the major knowledge management problems in the design of a large commercial software system. There is explanation of how the design of such a product was documented as a CODE knowledge base by using CODE to carefully analyse all the important concepts and terms in direct consultation with the developers. CODE could be described variously as a `design knowledge capture tool´, a `conceptual design assistant´, or a `knowledge management system for technical documentation´. Its knowledge base and its highly interactive interface combine ideas from frame based knowledge representation systems, object oriented systems and hypertext systems. CODE is intended to augment and eventually replace conventional word processing and graphical tools for the capture, editing and documentation of such knowledge. Hence it facilitates constructing definitions or descriptions of all the main concepts in a system, validating these so that the system designers are in agreement, and retrieving and graphically displaying such knowledge in various formats. CODE has been used in a wide variety of knowledge management situations, but here the focus is on its use in software engineering design