RFK and knowledge processing

After writing these blogs: The RFK process explained and Request For Knowledge (RFK) somehow I got the feeling that I never could be the first of this concept. This triggered me to search for the word I was thinking I invented it: Request For Knowledge.

Fortunately for me: I had many hits and I came up to several interesting documents. I think I can say fortunately as these articles and presentations confirmed to me that here is another challenge for us testers or even business analysts to continue working on my initial idea. The challenges to collect information in a structured way were we might define the process to get grip on risks based on initial missing knowledge.

Although there is lots of information here some of those I found.

On Indentifying Knowledge Processing Requirements by Alain Léger, Lyndon J.B. Nixon and Pavel Shvaiko, May 2005
In short, presents a first step towards a successful transfer of knowledge-based technology from academia to industry.
I think the relation towards us testers here can be the usages of use cases to identify knowledge requirements.

Some Applications of Conceptual Knowledge Processing by Prof. Dr. Gerd Stumme
In this presentation an short overview is given how ontology’s are related to tasks and examples.

What I liked here was the introduction of the term: Ontology.

Ontology: "An Ontology is a formal specification of a shared conceptualisation of a domain of interest." T. Gruber, 1993.

Ontologies support a.o. the following tasks of knowledge management
• Acquiring Knowledge
• Organizing Knowledge
• Retrieving Knowledge

BOVIS LEND LEASE ikonnect Facilitated Knowledge Sharing by http://www.knowledgestreet.com/ September 2005

Some of the interesting points here is they specified several roles as Seekers and Facilitators.

Another interesting posting I found was the iWorkshop on [a-i-a.com] iWorkshop™ Knowledge Management and Collaborative Work

If we think a defined RFK process is needed to get more insight in the risks towards the software then knowledge processing might be a way to go. To me this seems to be a very complex process. Though this should not withhold us from collecting and translating the information in possible risks.

As in one of my articles I showed an example how RFK's on one area might impact the testing effort on another area. To improve this process, it perhaps might help to work on a certain ontology. As the moments of tasks mentioned can influence the way we have to define our strategy. We have to learn to adapt instead of forcing our process towards the organization.

Related to roles we can take, I think we will be as well seekers as facilitators.

I know I'm not unique with the term RFK. I believe there are some gains to get, focusing on this process also. It might help us define improvement suggestions towards the organizations. As well in front of a project as well during evaluation of the project.