Experience Management: The Fraunhofer IESE Experience Factory

Experience Management (EM) is an area that is increasingly gaining importance. Its roots lie in Experimental Software Engineering ("Experience Factory"), in Artificial Intelligence ("Case-Based Reasoning"), and in Knowledge Management. EM is comprised of the dimensions methodology, technical realization, organization, and management. It includes technologies, methods, and tools for identifying, collecting, documenting, packaging, storing, generalizing, reusing, adapting, and evaluating experience knowledge, as well as for development, improvement, and execution of all knowledge-related processes. The main difference between experience knowledge and general knowledge is the fact that normally, a (more or less) continuous "stream of knowledge" must be processed. Within this paper, we present some basic methods of EM, using the Fraunhofer IESE Experience Factory as an example, which, after a one-year trial run, has been in regular operation since the beginning of this year.