Towards an Experience Management System at Fraunhofer Center for Experimental Software Engineering Maryland (FC-MD)

Fraunhofer USA Center for Experimental Software Engineering, Maryland ISERN - October Background Organizations must deliver products faster, cheaper, and with higher quality than before. To learn from experience an organization must document and share knowledge and experience to: –become less dependent on its employees Knowledge is often lost when employees leave the company –unload its experts Sharing knowledge the traditional way is very time consuming –get new employees to become productive sooner New employees need to learn from previous experience It takes a fairly long time to collect experience because it’s unstructured, undocumented, and even unavailable Why is it that so few organizations do this even though they know it is important?

Fraunhofer USA Center for Experimental Software Engineering, Maryland ISERN - October Background Experience needs to be –Captured, –Structured, –Searchable, –Made available, and –Maintained. There needs to be –An experience management framework with concepts –Methodologies governing how the experience is structured –Processes, procedures and roles governing how the experience is managed on a daily basis –Supporting tools that helps with all of the above

Fraunhofer USA Center for Experimental Software Engineering, Maryland ISERN - October Fundamental concepts behind EMS Basili’s Experience Factory (EF) defines a framework for Experience Management EF requires a separate support organization that works with the project organization to manage experience EF has been successfully applied to NASA for more than 25 years The Fraunhofer Center for Experiemental Software Engineering Maryland will use the EF and apply it to organizations helping them to manage their experience FC-Maryland has a series of Experience Management projects that develop processes, tools, and taxonomies to work with organizations to tailor and implement the experience factory concepts to their needs. Such an implementation is called an Experience Management System (EMS).

Fraunhofer USA Center for Experimental Software Engineering, Maryland ISERN - October The Experience Factory model of FC-MD Planning Doing Execution Model Analysis Synthesis Experience Base Business Support Produced data Packaged experience Experience Factory Project organization EMS support

Fraunhofer USA Center for Experimental Software Engineering, Maryland ISERN - October EMS is more than code The executable system is a client – server design –13 components, written in Java, using an OO design –Each component is owned by person responsible for implementing it on both the client and server side. EMS is part of knowledge management at FC-Maryland –It is an implementation of a knowledge management system –It is a process for business resource understanding and management –It is corporate culture. To get full benefit from EMS, must change how organizations operate

Fraunhofer USA Center for Experimental Software Engineering, Maryland ISERN - October EMS at FC-MD Based on an initial EMS developed for Q-labs we are now tailoring it to needs at FC-MD We are populating the EMS with our own experience We are using our own methodologies to define processes, procedures and roles on how to manage the experience We are continuously adding features to and improving the user interface of the EMS tool We will further develop and evaluate EMS by letting our own employees use it on a daily basis

Fraunhofer USA Center for Experimental Software Engineering, Maryland ISERN - October Aspects of an EMS Content --- information, knowledge, and experience Structure--- the different ways we organize and view the content Procedures --- instructions on how to use, package, add, delete, integrate, and update experience Supporting tools --- tools that help us capture, structure, store, integrate, analyze, and retrieve experience The work of setting up an EMS for a customer is guided by a methodology

Fraunhofer USA Center for Experimental Software Engineering, Maryland ISERN - October EMS Basic Concepts Package Type: defines a set of properties for a domain –Example: Documents; Projects; Employees, etc. Project package type components: –Attributes (scalar values): name; project manager; start date; etc. –Elements (documents): Project description; Requirements; Design; Report –Links (URLs): ResultedFromProject; BasedOnProposal Sample Project; package #241 –Example Attributes: name=“EMS”; project manager=“Mikael” –Example Elements: Project description=pis_ems.doc; Requirements=reqs_ems.doc –Example Links: ResultedFromProject=package #169; BasedOnProposal=package #130

Fraunhofer USA Center for Experimental Software Engineering, Maryland ISERN - October Our Methodology for Developing an Experience Base

Fraunhofer USA Center for Experimental Software Engineering, Maryland ISERN - October The EMS Tool Is a search and retrieval tool for all kind of documented knowledge Procedure: –Formulate and submit query –Investigate and interpret results –Refine query if necessary –Investigate each package on a more detailed level –Follow links, examine and retrieve elements, review comments

Fraunhofer USA Center for Experimental Software Engineering, Maryland ISERN - October Tool: Prototype EMS user interface