2. Agenda
• Introduction to Knowledge Management (KM) concepts
• Importance of Knowledge Management
• Knowledge Management and Agile Projects
• Challenges of KM in Agile Projects
• KM Process Model for Agile projects
• Technologies supporting KM in Agile Projects
• Conclusion
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3. Knowledge Management Concepts
• Data is simply a collection of facts and figures.
• Information relates to description, definition, or
perspective (what, who, when, where).
• Knowledge comprises strategy, practice, method, or
approach (how).
• Wisdom embodies principle, insight, moral, or
archetype (why).
The sequence data -> information -> knowledge ->
wisdom represents an emergent continuum.
Although data is a discrete entity, the progression to WISDOM
information, to knowledge, and finally to wisdom does
not occur in discrete stages of development. One
progresses along the continuum as one's
understanding develops.
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4. Knowledge Management Concepts
Differentiated – the element (software) is divided
into many modules
• What is more highly differentiated and less
integrated is more complex.
• While high levels of differentiation without
integration promote the complicated.
• Which is highly integrated, without
differentiation, produces mundane.
• We tend to avoid the complicated and are
uninterested in the mundane. The complexity that
exists between these two alternatives is the path
we generally find most attractive.
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5. Knowledge Management Concepts
Explicit
Knowledge that is codified, recorded or actualized into some form outside of the
head, e.g., documents, books, periodicals, journals, maps, photographs, audio-
recordings, webpages, websites, portals
Tacit
Knowledge gained from experience and insight, not in a recorded form, but in our
heads, e.g., intuition
Intellectual Capital
Organization assets in terms of intellectual property. Highly formalized form of
knowledge.
In simple language, KM is an effort to capture not only explicit information
but also the tacit information and knowledge that exists in an organization,
usually based on the experience and learning of individual employees, in
order to advance the organization's mission. The eventual goal is to share
knowledge among members of the organization.
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6. Importance of Knowledge Management
“If only HP knew what it knows, it would make three times more profit
tomorrow.”
-Lew Platt, ex-CEO Hewlett Packard
“Most activities or tasks are not one-time events. Whether it’s drilling a
well or conducting a transaction at a service station, we do the same
things repeatedly. Our philosophy is fairly simple: every time we do
something again, we should do it better than the last time.”
- Sir John Steely Browne, BP, Harvard Business Review, 1997
“The survival of the fittest is as inexorable for organizations as it is in
nature.”
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7. Knowledge Management and Agile Projects
• Agile does not mean – No Knowledge Management
• Agile Values – Working software versus comprehensive documentation is
misinterpreted many times in the context of Knowledge Management
• One of the main characteristics of Agile methodologies is their attempt to
emphasize the company’s organizational and project memory
• From exhaustive external to tacit knowledge – to increase accessibility.
• Eliminate documentation process related wastes, which hinder project
progress.
• Recent information from a team member is valued more than the archived
documentation.
Knowledge Management and Agile are not mutually exclusive in their values.
How one achieves KM may differ depending on the project is Agile or
Traditional.
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8. Challenges of KM in Agile Projects
• Psychological
• To win the psychological battle to believe that Knowledge
Management can be very effective in Agile Projects.
• Attitude towards making an attempt towards KM in everyday life.
• Team structures
• Functional Teams/Cross functional Teams
• Knowledge is available within the team for their tasks as they are
functional experts. But there is erosion of specific information over time.
• Team members find themselves in situations where they know that they
have had a certain problem before, but cannot remember its solution.
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9. Challenges of KM in Agile Projects
• Feature Teams
• Should be able to take up any area of the product. Hence a breadth of
know-how is always required.
• It is very difficult to remember the different types of tasks that the teams
were doing and hence, it becomes mandatory to archive some
knowledge gained through experience.
• Subject matter experts in larger teams find themselves spending much
time in repeatedly answering the same questions.
• Virtual Teams
• There is no direct knowledge exchange between members of different
teams if they do not belong to the same community.
• Important knowledge is lost as soon as experienced developers leave
the project or company.
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10. KM Process Model for Agile projects
What
To know What is your:
The Cycle of KM With every cycle,
Product – KM Elements
needs to be repeated Process – KM Elements
knowledge base
for every Agile project grows
How When
To know how to capture , To know When to capture KM
different types of KM Elements Elements
depending on the type of KM
Element.
Dynamic – (Tacit )- During project
execution
Electronic – Media of KM
Static – (Explicit) - Before or after
Code project execution
Tech -Forums
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11. Technologies supporting KM in Agile Projects
Static knowledge :
The knowledge that is mostly explicit in nature. These are required to be done once for a
project and required as reference for the teams to be able to function throughout the project.
• Product Technical architecture description
• Security Threat and Risk analysis
TECHNOLOGY SUPPORTING: Formal documentation archiving software. Information
management systems.
Dynamic Knowledge:
The knowledge that is mostly needs to be captured during the project execution during day to
day task completion (not always) .
• Comments in code
• Wiki update for interface changes
• New learning about the product. Technical queries
TECHNOLOGY SUPPORTING: Wiki, webpages, discussion forums, Technical boot strapping
sessions, chat rooms (geographically separated teams), screen capturing and video capturing
software.
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12. Conclusion
• Agile and Knowledge Management go hand in hand. An Agile team
which practices Knowledge Management principles will be the
winner in the long run.
• Organizations survive if the knowledge is managed in knowledge
industries.
• Agile Teams GROW more confident with Knowledge Management.
• Like the famous saying by Mark Victor Hansen goes:
“Don’t just think it, Ink it !”
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