The Usefulness of Architectural Knowledge Management Practices in GSD

Practices for architectural knowledge management (AKM) may alleviate the challenges involved with GSD. We have conducted empirical research at a large Dutch IT service provider to validate a set of practices for architectural knowledge management in GSD and to specifically investigate the relation between the number of sites and the perceived usefulness of these practices. The results show that AKM practices supporting a personalization strategy towards knowledge management are perceived to be more useful than practices that support a codification strategy. Further, the usefulness of AKM practices in general is confirmed. Finally, we observe a peak in the perceived usefulness of AKM practices in projects that evolved to a multi-site situation. This high perceived usefulness denotes a more critical need to plan for AKM practices in advance.