Advances in Learning Software Organizations

The theme of the 4th International Workshop on Learning Software Organizations (LSO 2002) was “BalancingAgile Processes and Long-Term Learning in Software - ganizations.”The LSOWorkshop series focuses on technical, organizational, and social solutions to problems of learning from past experiences and codifying the resulting best practicessotheycanbesystematicallyusedinsubsequentsoftwaredevelopmentefforts. Through paper presentations, panels, and discussions, the workshop explored the issues of managing knowledge in dynamic domains requiring signi?cant differences betweenorganizationsandbetweenprojects.Challengesdiscussedrangedfromrealistic assumptions on the added documentation burden LSO techniques may require to how effectively repositories have been used in the past to the team and social issues involved in applying solutions created by others. Experience-based approaches were discussed extensively and some reports of initial successes were given along with some instances where the experience base was underutilized. Enabling organizational learning involves more than repositories, search engines, and training. At its core, it involves creating new work practices that value current practices while searching for improvements. The issues involved are both technical and behavioral,aseffectivetechnologymayenticeutilization,butexperiencehasshownthat other factors weigh in just as heavily. There are currently no profound or ?nal answers on these questions, nor are they expected for some time to come, if at all. Hence the need for continued research into these dif?cult issues. This workshop, and others to follow hope to begin to shed light on the issues so an effective and fruitful dialog can begin that can lead to signi?cant contributions to the softwareengineering and knowledge management ?elds, amongst others.