Knowledge Management Practices in Brazilian Software Organizations: The Case of SERPRO

Introduction

Software development and maintenance are knowledge intensive activities. Fast technology development and reduced time to market make software business thoroughly dynamic. Software organizations in general must rely upon the ability of its software engineers to adapt to a challenging environment and, in consequence, their results can be highly influenced by its intellectual capital. In this context, knowledge management can be one influential factor affecting software organizations’ performance and therefore must be properly addressed.

Specifically regarding the software engineering context of a Brazilian software organization, results of a recent survey (Furquim, Oliveira, and Amaral, 2007) show that knowledge repositories were not used by software practitioners, who preferred to use the organization’s software process portal as a knowledge base. These results motivated the development of this case study to understand which knowledge management practices are developed at the referred Brazilian software organization.