KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT IN SOFTWARE-DESIGN - A TOOL AND A TRIAL

The paper describes experiences in applying a knowledge management too l, called CODE, to the major knowledge management problems in the desi gn of a large commercial software system, There is explanation of how the design of such a product was documented as a CODE knowledge base b y using CODE to carefully analyse all the important concepts and terms in direct consultation with the developers, CODE could be described v ariously as a 'design knowledge capture tool', a 'conceptual design as sistant', or a 'knowledge management system for technical documentatio n'. Its knowledge base and its highly interactive interface combine id eas from frame-based knowledge representation systems, object-oriented systems and hypertext systems, CODE is intended to augment and eventu ally replace conventional word-processing and graphical tools for the capture, editing and documentation of such knowledge. Hence it facilit ates constructing definitions or descriptions of all the main concepts in a system, validating these so that the system designers are in agr eement, and retrieving and graphically displaying such knowledge in va rious formats. CODE has been used in a wide variety of knowledge manag ement situations, but here the focus is on its use in software enginee ring design.