This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed and revised post-conference documentation of the 11th International Conference on Software Engineering and Knowledge Engineering, SEKE'99, held in Kaiserslautern, Germany in June 1999. The book provides a unique overview of current activities, approaches, and trends in learning software organizations. The first part gives an overview on the topic, covering foundations in the software engineering domain, enabling techniques for organizational learning, and learning support techniques. The second and the third part of the book on methodology and applications present thoroughly revised full papers of the most interesting papers on learning software organizations presented during SEKE'99 and its satellite workshop LSO'99.

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 software engineering and knowledge management ?elds, amongst others.

The importance of production and use of high quality software is still growing, as more and more businesses depend on information technology. Well educated, highly skilled, and experienced employees characterize the situation in most companies in the developed countries. Increasingly they work together in temporary networks with geographically distributed offices. Using and developing their knowledge is a key issue in gaining competitive advantages. We have learned during recent years that the exchange and development of knowledge (which we call learning) demands a great deal of human interaction. However, it is widely recognized that information systems will, in many cases, enable the sharing of experience across distributed organizations and act as a knowledge repository. A Learning Software Organization (LSO) will turn Intellectual Capital into market shares and profit, as it establishes the means to manage its knowledge. The LSO workshop series was created in 1999 to provide a communication forum that addresses the questions of organizational learning from a software point of view and builds upon existing work on Knowledge Management and Organizational Learning. It aims at bringing together practitioners and researchers for an open exchange of experience with successes and failures in organizational learning. Right from the beginning, fostering interdisciplinary approaches and providing an opportunity to learn about new ideas has been a central issue of the workshop series. The feedback that we have obtained in recent years has encouraged us to continue our work for a better understanding of the setup and running of Learning Software Organizations.

Software-intensive organizations cannot help but learn. A software organization that does not learn will not exist for long, because the software market is continuously on the move,because of new customerdemandsand needs, and becauseof new competitor products and services. Software organizationsmust adapt quickly to this ever-changing environment, and the capability to adapt is one of the most important aspects of lea- ing. Smart organizations will attempt to predict future software demands, and develop a corresponding knowledge road map that identi?es the capabilities needed over time in order to meet these demands. Organizational learning typically occurs when experienced organization members share their knowledge with colleagues, such that the organization as a whole can pro?t from the intellectual capital of its members. While knowledge is typically shared in an adhoc fashion by means of direct, face-to-face communication, a learning software organizationwill want to ensurethat this knowledgesharingoccursina systematicway, enabling it whenever and wherever it is needed. Since 1999,the annualInternationalWorkshopon LearningSoftwareOrganizations (LSO) hasprovideda communicationforumthat bringstogether academiaand industry to discuss the advancements in and to address the questions of continuous learning in software-intensive organizations. Building upon existing work on knowledge mana- ment and organizational learning, the workshop series promotes interdisciplinary - proaches from computer science and information systems, business, management and organization science as well as cognitive science.

Organizational Learning and Knowledge: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools and Applications demonstrates exhaustively the many applications, issues, and techniques applied to the science of recording, categorizing, using and learning from the experiences and expertise acquired by the modern organization. A much needed collection, this multi-volume reference presents the theoretical foundations, research results, practical case studies, and future trends to both inform the decisions facing today's organizations and the establish fruitful organizational practices for the future. Practitioners, researchers, and academics involved in leading organizations of all types will find useful, grounded resources for navigating the ever-changing organizational landscape.

Includes articles in topic areas such as autonomic computing, operating system architectures, and open source software technologies and applications.