Knowledge Sharing in Software Development: Comparing XP and Waterfall Methods

Knowledge sharing and coordination is a critical part of ¿knowledge work¿, the broad class of newly dominant professions that hinge upon the successful manipulation and recombination of knowledge and information, rather than physical objects. Research to date has looked at knowledge sharing in the workplace as occurring primarily through intentional acts ¿ something shared through explicit communication or codified for later use in knowledge repositories such as databases or wikis. This focus on the intentional omits consideration of how knowledge may be shared through acts not explicitly intended to be communicative. In this book, I examine how knowledge sharing on small teams occurs through work practice. Using ethnographic methods, I document and analyze differences in knowledge sharing on two software development teams that employ different software development processes (eXtreme Programming and the Waterfall method). This research should be useful to all who seek to promote effective knowledge sharing in the work place and may be of particular interest to software development professionals and managers.