Knowledge management in software design: a tool and a trial

Abstract

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.