Knowledge Creation and Loss within a Software Organization: An Exploratory Case Study

Software development activities are very critical, since most of them heavily depend on individuals´ knowledge and their capabilities. This knowledge must be retained and managed in order to avoid productivity breakdowns. This paper empirically explores how knowledge is created and lost in a software organization, and discusses implications for software development. This is done through a case study in which we investigated a Brazilian R&D Institute. We found that knowledge creation can be achieved through: (1) knowledge sources, (2) architectural frameworks that contain common applications and architectures for a set of projects, and (3) lessons learned that contains concerns regarding previous projects. Additionally, we verified that some teams´ actions might influence knowledge loss. To identify and to understand which aspects are related to managing knowledge is the first step towards avoiding its loss and facilitating organizational learning. Our work contributes to this end.