Direct verbal communication as a catalyst of agile knowledge sharing

Abstract

This paper discusses the role of conversation and social interactions as the key element of effective knowledge sharing in an agile process. It also presents the observations made during a repeated experiment on knowledge sharing conducted in various groups of professionals and students. The study suggests that the focus on the pure codified approach is the critical reason of Tayloristic team failure to effectively share knowledge among all stakeholders of a software project. Drawing on the knowledge-as-relationship perspective of knowledge sharing we theorize that verbal face-to-face interaction facilitates achieving higher velocity by software development teams.