Simulation is a powerful instrument in the education process that can help students experience a reality context and understand complex concepts required to accomplish practitioners' tasks. The present study aims to investigate the software engineering students' perception about the usefulness of the Planning Poker technique in relation to their understanding of the relative estimation concept. We conducted a simulation exercise where students first estimated tasks applying the concepts of relative estimation based on the concepts explained in the lecture, and then to estimate tasks applying the Agile Planning Poker technique. To investigate the students' perception, we used a survey at the end of each exercise. The preliminary results did not show statistical significance on the students' confidence to estimate relatively the user stories. However, from the students' comments and feedback, there are indications that students are more confident in using Agile Planning Poker when they are asked to estimate user stories. The study will be replicated in the near future to a different group of students with a different background, to have a better understanding and also identify possible flaws of the exercise. © 2018 Association for Computing Machinery.

Context: Many software companies adopt Agile Software Development (ASD) principles through various methods, aiming to respond rapidly to market changes or internal transformations. Agile principles prioritise informal communication between people over documentation to bring more flexibility and readiness when welcoming changes, posing pressure on how knowledge, a strategic resource, is shared and applied. Many knowledge resources remain intangible in these contexts, which poses challenges to resource management because knowledge is difficult to reproduce and manage, requiring lots of effort to understand what should remain tacit and what should be captured explicitly as artefacts. 

Objective: This thesis aims to contribute to a better understanding of knowledge resources in agile software project environments and provide guidance on effectively managing them. 

Method: We follow mostly a qualitative approach to investigate knowledge resource management. We adhere to social constructivism research, which notes that social phenomena undergo constant changes and are affected by human interaction. As qualitative and quantitative methods of investigation, we utilised literature reviews, grounded theory, survey and a case study.

Results: This thesis provides an empirical understanding of how knowledge resources are used in practice and what hinders their effective management in ASD environments. More specifically, we focus on Property-based Resources (PBRs) such as Boundary Artefacts (BAs), examining inefficiencies in their content management and providing recommendations. We synthesised evidence from the literature to show the proportions of knowledge management practices utilised in ASD environments and the knowledge process they focus on. Through a grounded theory study, we identified Knowledge-based Resources (KBRs) that support changes in agile environments in the Knowledge-push theory. In this same study, we identified inefficiencies in converting KBRs into PBRs. This evidence led us to a case study in which we investigated the causes and effects of trust in BAs. The results have contributed to understanding the favourable factors that make stakeholders feel confident in utilising BAs and also pointed to the implication of decreased trust in software projects. Such negative implications can be mitigated by applying our developed and validated guideline that supports the creation of BAs in software engineering, which was perceived as being able to increase the trustworthiness of BAs. Lastly, in a concise format, we gathered the evidence that we collected through this doctoral journey and offered a simplified discussion about knowledge resources in an agile context. We explore their types, challenges and potential solutions to effectively manage knowledge, especially what is stored in artefacts.

Conclusions: We clarify the concept of KBRs, identify them, and explain how they support changes in agile contexts. In this process, we uncover the inefficiencies in converting KBRs into PBRs. We also provide guidance on effectively managing knowledge resources in software project environments, which can be helpful for software organisations. For example, (i) understanding how trust aspects such as reliability, predictability, and functionality affect practitioners' confidence in BAs, (ii) providing a structured guideline that helps practitioners create BAs, (iii) incorporating more formal practices to manage BAs that do not necessarily abandon agile flexibility to deal with changes. 

 Background. Agile Software Development (ASD) promises agility and flexibility in dealing with uncertainty by prioritizing interaction between people supported by informal communication and knowledge sharing. The lack of practices to manage the knowledge as a resource might jeopardize the application of knowledge in the production of goods and service. The utilization of Knowledge Management (KM) strategies can significantly support achieving and sustaining competitive advantage and brings several benefits to software development. However, how to manage knowledge in ASD is still not well understood or investigated.

 Objectives. The main objective of this thesis is to contribute to the software engineering field by providing a different perspective on directions that KM can take to improve knowledge-based resource (KBR) management in ASD. The detailed objectives are: (i) Understand the current ASD environment regarding KM; (ii) Identify KBRs in ASD and its implications for KM; and (iii) Provide an initial set of variables to evaluate knowledge criticality of knowledge items in ASD.

 Method. We used a mixed-methods approach to address the objective of this thesis. The methods selected to conduct the studies include systematic literature review, grounded theory, and improvement case study. The data collection comprised a literature review, semi-structured interviews, and practitioners’ feedback through static validation.

 Results. From our SLR we observed that that KM strategies in ASD promote mainly knowledge transfer through practices that stimulate social interaction to share tacit knowledge in the project layer, increasing the risk of losing knowledge by keeping the knowledge localized inside a few individual’s minds. When it comes to coordination, practitioners utilize KBRs in their routines, through social collaboration within teams’ environment/settings. However, this process is nonsystematic, which brings inefficiency to KBR utilization resulting in knowledge loss. It can generate negative implications to the course of the software development, including meaningless searches in databases, frustration because of recurrent problems, and unawareness of knowledge sources. To support decision making related to knowledge retention, we have developed an initial version of the method to evaluate the criticality (KCEM) of a knowledge item, which is divided into two categories, relevance, and scarcity.

 Conclusion. The current results of this thesis are of particular interest. However, we recognize that the work is unfinished. As a complement to this thesis, we have planned our long-term objective, which is to contribute to creating scalable KM solutions for companies adopting ASD.We divide this long-term objective into three studies: Carry out a complementary study to apply KCEM in different companies; explore efficient ways of storing codified knowledge in combination with the KCEM, and investigate how to define metrics to evaluate the outcomes of KM practices.

Background: Organizations adopting Agile Software Development (ASD) use different Knowledge Management (KM) practices to retain and share knowledge. However, it is often the case that knowledge retention is carried out in an ad-hoc way.

Aims: In this study, we report our experience from proposing the Knowledge Critically Evaluation Method (KCEM) to evaluate knowledge items (KIT). Our main goal with KCEMs is to support companies to systematically retain knowledge in ASD contexts.

Method: We conducted an improvement case study to develop and evaluate KCEM. This research follows the guidelines for technology transfer between industry and academia. The case and unit of analysis is Ericsson, a Swedish company that develops telecommunication solutions.

Results: In this paper, we provide initial results of both lab and static validation, enriched by the lessons learned.

Conclusions: The preliminary results show that KCEM is easy to understand and use, provides a different perspective on the KIT by visualizing in the criticality chart, and reduces the level of abstraction associated to a knowledge subject area.

Context: Boundary Artefacts (BAs) support software development activities in many aspects because it carries lots of information in the same object that can be used and interpreted by several social groups within an organisation. When the BAs are inconsistent regarding their content, such as many meanings or lack of contextual information, their efficiency is reduced because stakeholders will not trust them. Objective: This study aimed to understand the implications of differences in the perception of trust on software projects and their influence on stakeholders' behaviour. Methods: We conducted an exploratory case study to observe the creation and utilisation of one specific BA and the implications of differences in trust and their influence on stakeholders' behaviour. Results : Our investigation has shown that practitioners adding and adjusting existing content do not entirely understand the stakeholders' needs. Together with the partial management of the content, trust is impacted. When the content of BAs does not meet the trust factors, specifically reliability and predictability, the stakeholders cannot execute their tasks appropriately, and several implications affect the software development project. Additionally, they create workarounds to supply their needs. Conclusion: The differences in trust in BAs affect software projects in different areas of the organisation and interfere with the task execution of various stakeholders. The decrease in trust results from inconsistencies in the content associated with the lack of management of the BA. A structured strategy for representing and managing a BA's content seems appropriate to increase trust levels and efficiency.

Context: Software development benefits from having Boundary Artefacts (BAs),as a single artefact can supply stakeholders with different boundaries, facilitatingcollaboration among social worlds. When those artefacts display inconsistencies,such as incorrect information, the practitioners have decreased trust in the BA. Astrust is an essential factor guiding the utilisation of BAs in software projects, it isnecessary to understand which principles should be observed when creating them.

Objective: This study aimed at develop and validate a preliminary guidelinesupport the creation of trustworthy BAs.

Method: We followed a multi-step approach. We developed our guideline througha literature review and previous results from our case study. Second, we submittedthe guideline for an expert evaluation via two workshops and a survey. At last, weadjusted our guideline by incorporating the feedback obtained during the workshops.

Results: We grouped the principles collected from a literature review into threecategories. The first category (Scope) focuses on the scope, displaying principlesreferring to defining each boundary’s target audience, needs, and terminology. Thesecond category (Structure) relates to how the artefact’s content is structured tomeet stakeholders’ needs. The third (Management) refers to principles that canguide the establishment of practices to manage the artefact throughout time. Theexpert validation revealed that the principles contribute to creating trustworthy BAsat different levels. Also, the relevance of the guideline and its usefulness.

Conclusions: The guideline strengthen BA traits such as shared understanding,plasticity and ability to transfer. Practitioners can utilise the guideline to guide thecreation or even evaluate current practices for existing BAs

This article discusses the importance of managing knowledge as a resource due to its great potential to create economic value. We detail the types of knowledge resources, the challenges associated with their management, and potential solutions to maximise their utility. Our contribution is based on empirical studies performed in an industry context. 

Agile methodologies gave teams more autonomy regarding planning tasks and executing them. As a result, coordination gets more flexible, but much relevant knowledge remains undocumented and inside teams’ borders, due to informal communication and reduced development documentation. Since knowledge plays an essential role in software development, it is important to have effective knowledge management (KM) practices that contribute to a better knowledge resource allocation. Several KM practices have been reported in empirical studies in Agile Software Development (ASD). However, these practices are not evaluated regarding its effectiveness or how do they affect product quality. Besides, the studies do not demonstrate connections between the KM practices in the project level and the strategic level. The lack of connection between these levels can result in deviations from the company’s corporate strategy, wasted resources and irrelevant knowledge acquisition. This paper discusses how the strategic management can contribute to an integrated approach to KM in ASD; considering the organizational structure and the corporate strategy. Based on this discussion, we propose research areas that may help with planning KM strategies that can have their effectiveness measured and contribute to product quality. © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2018.

As the software value chain is knowledge-based due to the high dependency on people, the lack of practice to manage knowledge as a resource might jeopardize its application in software development. The resource-based view of the firm provides a different perspective on the utilization of knowledge, assisting the identification of the Knowledge-Based Resources (KBRs) that allow a company to have a continuous readiness to quickly respond to the market changes. To understand how the KBRs support coordination in Agile Software Development (ASD), we applied a grounded theory approach, collecting data from 18 practitioners, coming from five companies. As results, we identified 44 KBRs that were grouped in the Continuous Assimilation Model (CHASM). They support coordination in ASD with continuous assimilation of change which is supported by people’s business analytic perspective and product systemic reasoning. The companies are able to utilize a certain level of their KBRs through social collaboration and team environment/settings. However, the inefficient utilization of these resources results in a significant knowledge loss. Furthermore, CHASM points out areas where practitioners can establish strategies based on the priorities that the companies give to the investigated KBRs, as well as a set of research opportunities for future investigation.

Knowledge-intensive companies that adopt Agile Software Development (ASD) relay on efficient implementation of Knowledge Management (KM) strategies to promotes different Knowledge Processes (KPs) to gain competitive advantage. This study aims to explore how companies that adopt ASD implement KM strategies utilizing practices that promote the KPs in the different organizational layers. Through a systematic literature review, we analyzed 32 primary studies, selected by automated search and snowballing in the extant literature. To analyze the data, we applied narrative synthesis. Most of the identified KM practices implement personalization strategies (81 %), supported by codification (19 %). Our review shows that the primary studies do not report KM practices in the strategic layer and two of them in the product portfolio layer; on the other hand, in the project layer, the studies report 33 practices that implement personalization strategy, and seven practices that implement codification. KM strategies in ASD promote mainly the knowledge transfer process with practices that stimulate social interaction to share tacit knowledge in the project layer. As a result of using informal communication, a significant amount of knowledge can be lost or not properly transferred to other individuals and, instead of propagating the knowledge, it remains inside a few individuals minds.

The software value chain is knowledge-based since it is highly dependant on people. Consequently, a lack of practice in managing knowledge as a resource may jeopardise its application in software development. Knowledge-Based Resources (KBRs) relate to employees’ intangible knowledge that is deemed to be valuable to a company's competitive advantage. In this study, we apply a grounded theory approach to examine the role of KBRs in Agile Software Development (ASD). To this aim, we collected data from 18 practitioners from five companies. We develop the Knowledge-Push theory, which explains how KBRs boost the need for change in ASD. Our results show that the practitioners who participated in the study utilise, as primary strategies, task planning, resource management, and social collaboration. These strategies are implemented through the team environment and settings and incorporate an ability to codify and transmit knowledge. However, this process of codification is non-systematic, which consequently introduces inefficiency in the domain of knowledge resource utilisation, resulting in potential knowledge waste. This inefficiency can generate negative implications for software development, including meaningless searches in databases, frustration because of recurrent problems, the unnecessary redesign of solutions, and a lack of awareness of knowledge sources. © 2022 The Authors