Research background

In times of digitalization, knowledge has established itself as an essential production factor. Knowledge is also essential in software development. Not only programming itself, in which knowledge of programming languages, data structures or algorithms is important, but also project management or the definition of requirements for the software system imposed by the application environment and the users is very knowledge-intensive. In software development, structured processes are necessary for the development.

Research goals

The M-Wise research project aims to promote and sustainably improve knowledge management in software development. The goal is to improve the methods and practice of modeling knowledge-intensive software development processes. To this end, a method and, as its core, a modeling language for knowledge-intensive processes in software engineering are to be developed and tested. Specifically, the goal of the development of KMDL SE is to enable users to effectively, efficiently, and actively organize knowledge acquisition, storage, and transfer in software development.

Development of a semiformal modeling language for knowledge-intensive business processes: KMDL®

The Knowledge Modeling Description Language (KMDL) makes it possible to systematically capture and analyze knowledge flows and transformations in a company in addition to classical business processes. Furthermore, it offers the representation of a differentiated and consistent modeling of knowledge-intensive business processes with an exact differentiation of the conversion forms of knowledge. For example, knowledge monopolies, unused knowledge or unmet knowledge needs can be identified and measures for optimizing knowledge-intensive processes can be derived. As a semiformal, graph-based modeling language, KMDL® is used in research and practice and can identify significant improvement potentials for the prevailing knowledge management through its description of knowledge transformations in the operational environment. 

Funding and data

The BMWi-funded project was carried out by the Chair of Information Systems, Processes and Systems at the University of Potsdam as part of the Softwareoffensive 2006.