Software architecture knowledge management

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Designing the global structure and behaviour of a software system - its software architecture - is a knowledge-intensive process. The knowledge produced and consumed during this process is broad and complex, and needs to be shared and reused among different stakeholders, across different phases of the lifecycle, sometimes long after the initial development has been completed. Managing architectural knowledge, explicit and implicit, generic or system-specific, is the main focus of this research proposal which straddles software architecture (an engineering discipline) and knowledge management (a social discipline). The long term objective of the proposed research is to construct a theory of architecture knowledge management for large, complex, software-intensive systems. This involves the design of a knowledge flow model for the software architecture design process and the related activities: capture and transfer of knowledge from individuals to individual, and organizations to organizations. This objective has 2 challenges: 1) from a theoretical perspective, can we build a theory of architectural knowledge, in particular around the concept of design decisions? and 2) from an empirical perspective, can we efficiently support practicing software architects in their activities, with tools and methods developed based on this theory? In the short-term, can we integrate existing knowledge management theories into the domain of software architecture design, and conduct (or extend) observational studies in professional environments to better understand how software architects and their organization presently manage this knowledge, and how we can positively impact this activity? Software architecture knowledge management is vital for the global competitiveness of our high tech enterprises.