The role of knowledge-based resources in Agile Software Development contexts

The software value chain is knowledge-based since it is highly dependant on people. Consequently, a lack of practice in managing knowledge as a resource may jeopardise its application in software development. Knowledge-Based Resources (KBRs) relate to employees’ intangible knowledge that is deemed to be valuable to a company’s competitive advantage. In this study, we apply a grounded theory approach to examine the role of KBRs in Agile Software Development (ASD). To this aim, we collected data from 18 practitioners from five companies. We develop the Knowledge-Push theory, which explains how KBRs boost the need for change in ASD. Our results show that the practitioners who participated in the study utilise, as primary strategies, task planning, resource management, and social collaboration. These strategies are implemented through the team environment and settings and incorporate an ability to codify and transmit knowledge. However, this process of codification is non-systematic, which consequently introduces inefficiency in the domain of knowledge resource utilisation, resulting in potential knowledge waste. This inefficiency can generate negative implications for software development, including meaningless searches in databases, frustration because of recurrent problems, the unnecessary redesign of solutions, and a lack of awareness of knowledge sources.