Knowledge Sharing Pattern Language

Figure 1. Effective software process environment (modified from Zahran, 1998, p. 68).

Problem	An organization with a need to establish or improve the guidance of work in the organization in order to allow for more efficient team work.
Initial Context	An organization in the software engineering business that has initiated process management. At the project level Shared Understanding (KSP05) exists between the customer and the organization.
Roles	An organization represented for example by top management and quality management. A project represented by all project team members.
Forces	To guide work in an organization, a communicated and shared target of work is required as well as common processes about how the work should be done. The target guides by showing where to go and the common processes that facilitate team work to achieve the goals. Aspects of a process (Zahran, 1998, p. 6-7): Process is the document specifying the process. Process is knowledge in people's brains to drive their behavior. Process is in the results of the process activities. According to Zahran (1998, p. 41, see also the Figure 1) the following factors increase process effectiveness: Living process documentation having dedicated resources for owning, disseminating and maintaining it. Everyone in the organization is keen to follow the process. Feedback is gathered, for example, through performance measurements and utilized in process improvement. The process impact on the business goals is evident and following the process is the norm.
Solution	Assure Target Understanding. Assure that at all levels of the organization the target of the work and business is clear. Assure also, that the process improvement work supports the implementation of the organization's vision and strategy. Assure Process Understanding. Assure that people know and are adequately trained to use the organization's set of standard processes. Maintain Processes. Continuously maintain the processes. Check also how the environment, e.g. software technologies change and define how those affect the processes. Ask for Feedback and Give Feedback. Constantly collect process user feedback. Measure & Follow Compliance. Constantly collect relevant measurement data and information about the compliance to processes and their efficiency. Improve Processes. Based on the organization's targets, and the results from steps 4 and 5, plan and implement process improvement activities. This is a continuous procedure, so when the closing point has been reached it must be restarted.
Resulting Context	An organization having well established process management and target understanding.
Instances	To initiate the guidance in an organization and to maintain and improve it continuously. One potential pitfall is to improve and maintain the processes fully separated from the real work resulting in processes that are not reasonable to follow in real life.
Process Connection	Business Management and Process Management.