Knowledge flow analysis to identify knowledge needs for the design of knowledge management systems and strategies: A methodological approach

This paper presents a methodological approach to identify knowledge needs in organizational processes. The methodology is oriented to facilitate obtaining requirements to design knowledge management systems and/or strategies. This approach has been applied for different purposes, including identifying relationships between the knowledge and sources involved in the activities of a process, the mechanisms used for managing knowledge in those processes, and the main problems affecting the flow of knowledge. In order to exemplify the usefulness and applicability of the proposed approach, a case study is described, in which the methodology was successfully applied to analyze a software development group. From this case study different possible solutions to some problems observed in the maintenance process were proposed.