Communication model for improving knowledge capture in cots-based systems

Software maintenance constitutes a significant part of software development, which sometimes becomes the lion's share of the project workload. Being a highly knowledge-intensive process, software maintenance can greatly benefit from knowledge management. Many software projects integrate commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) systems components in their projects and face knowledge-related challenges that are specific to such systems, like communication with the software vendor, understanding the ready-made components and more. While many methods have been suggested to improve knowledge management for software maintenance, little has been done in the field of COTS systems maintenance. In this paper we explore the COTS systems maintenance process from a knowledge-related perspective. To this end, we conducted an empirical study within a software project that is responsible for COTS system integration and maintenance. Following the findings of this study, we propose a new model for improving knowledge capture by examining the communication between COTS system players and stakeholders and utilizing knowledge management tools.