Agile-based education for teaching an agile requirements engineering methodology for knowledge management

The importance of the role that knowledge management (KM) plays in the success of knowledge-intensive organizations has long been acknowledged. However, requirements engineering (RE) methods for KM solutions still lack maturity, as do the educational programs in this domain. In this paper, an agile-based educational method for teaching RE for KM solutions, specifically an agile KM RE methodology (AKM-REM), is proposed. The paper reports a teaching experience, in which 17 teams of graduate students learned and implemented AKM-REM, each in a different real-life case study. Data were collected via class observations and from the students’ submitted projects and underwent qualitative content analysis. The findings demonstrate the manner in which AKM-REM creates a culture of collaboration, trust, and reflection, fostering the dynamic and flex-ible organization that is required in today’s competitive business environment. The contribution of this paper is fourfold. First, it presents an extension of the research on agile-based RE for KM solutions as a specialized area. Second, it presents an extension of an existing method KM-REM along the agile principles. Third, it provides means for agile-based education for analyzing and addressing KM challenges effectively. Finally, it describes the importance of agile KM RE in the context of sustainability.