On the role of Wiki for managing knowledge in agile software development

In the past decade, there have been a number of notable changes in industrial software engineering, including the movement towards agility. The Agile Manifesto characterizes the term “agile”, and lists a set of principles that form a basis for agile methodologies [1], such as Extreme Programming (XP), OpenUP, and Scrum. There is creation, communication, and consumption of knowledge during (agile) software development [2]. For the success of an agile project, it is crucial that such knowledge be managed effectively. In doing so, an appropriate selection and use of certain tools and technologies can be helpful. In the past few years, there has been a proliferation of Social Web Applications, such as Wiki [3]. Indeed, a number of noteworthy uses of Wiki in software engineering have been reported [4]. However, these studies are largely independent of any software development methodology, and are centered mostly on collaboration. The primary reasons for selecting Wiki for agile software development include the following: (1) the deployment of agile methodologies, especially XP and Scrum, with teams that are increasingly geographically-dispersed, (2) the involvement in sustainable software development by organizations with basic infrastructure and modest budgets for resources, and (3) the need of inexpensive, mature, and widely-available tools for supporting iterative development, by almost anybody, at anytime, anywhere, using almost any device. The purpose of this research is to provide a framework for integrating Wiki for the purpose of facilitating the dynamics of knowledge during agile software development.