Enforcing software developers’ productivity by using knowledge and experience

Objective—Explore the relation between developers, a Knowledge Experience Base (KEB) called PROMETHEUS and their presentation in the development of enterprise applications used to propose a theory that expresses relations based on empirical evidences. Methods—Case study carried out in a real context with 5 development teams each of 6 staff members, who have in turn carried out evolutive maintenance tasks on 5 Software Packages commercialized by the enterprise with 5 different process models. Results—In the 5 experimental teams that used KEB productivity is almost double compared to previous data without the KEB. Conclusions—We can assume that the theory is extendible to the development process according to which using KEB in maintenance processes improves developer productivity as it mitigates the errors made due to the amount of decisions taken during project execution. Experience collected in PROMETHEUS becomes part of the organizational culture, being it formalized.