Towards organizational learning: growing group memories in the workplace

Designing domain-oriented systems requires knowledge both in system design and in the domain to be supported. Communication between domain experts and system developers is essential to elicit or “activate” this knowledge. Contextualized information, conveyed in ongoing communication and evaluation, sheds light on problems and solutions that may otherwise remain uncovered. This information is valuable beyond the particular situation in which it originates. Experiences of our L3D research group with industries and universities have shown that the tasks of activating and capturing communication about system design, relating it to prior experiences, and feeding new insights back into a group memory face a number of challenges. I am developing an interactive group memory management system called GIMMe for growing diverse group memories during software design to explore the issues surrounding these challenges.