A Practical Model for Evaluating the Maturity of Knowledge Management in the Software Industry

The more that organizations have knowledge-intensive business processes, the more they need structured and realistic programs for acquiring and managing their knowledge as a strategic resource for future continuous improvements. In this paper, our aim is to clarify the role of knowledge measurement and management and to explain a maturity-based model with which knowledge can be leveraged strategically for continuous improvements. For this purpose, a brief review of the relevant literature has been provided and greater attention has been paid to organizational knowledge based performance. Hence, a knowledge management maturity model has been proposed in order to evaluate the current status of organizational knowledge management and to identify the knowledge management weaknesses. In this way, a group of experts have been requested to verify a list of comprehensive knowledge measurement measures used for evaluating the knowledge management maturity. As a next step, and for each approved measure, a maturity level has been assigned by the experts. As a final stage and for validating the model, one of the most knowledge- intensive organizations (a solution provider) has been evaluated by the final model. Findings show that the model is an appropriate representation of the current knowledge management maturity status and a fairly comprehensive criterion for selecting the next set of measures so as to improve the quality of knowledge management.