A model for assessing organizational learning in software development organizations

Abstract

In order to keep up with the continuously increasing competition and to obtain competitive advantage, software developer organizations (SDO) need to possess the characteristics of Learning Software Organizations (LSO). Maturity is directly related to both learning and knowledge management (KM). However, the major software process improvement (SPI) approaches do not explicitly address how learning capabilities of a SDO can be assessed or what knowledge needs to be managed and how, when, where, or by and for whom. This paper introduces a model for evaluating the organizational learning characteristics of a SDO. We report the results of applying the model in a university course on software development.