Software Experience Bases: A Consolidated Evaluation and Status Report

The paper studies the potential success of using software experience bases for organizational learning. First, a survey of some previous efforts in the area is presented, together with experiences from related fields. The NASA-SEL Experience Factory will be especially commented. We note, that, modern network technologies like the Web provide new possibilities for distributed storage, access and dissemination of relevant knowledge. However, the main problem lies in internalizing formal knowledge (learning), not in externalizing experiences (model building). Then we present an empirical study of four software experience bases in the Norwegian SPIQ project for software process improvement, done in 1997-99. The SPIQ project proposes a pragmatical, overall method for how to plan, establish, use and evaluate software experience bases. The actual hypotheses and research method are presented, followed by a characterization of the studied experience bases and their actual usage and role in the associated companies. The most critical success factors are found to be incremental startup with a low ambition level, usefulness of the knowledge being offered, and, most importantly, stable company strategies and key personnel (may seem obvious, but still not easy). Some advice for introducing and evaluating software experience bases are finally given.