Traceability-based knowledge integration in group decision and negotiation activities

Group decision and negotiation (GDN) in distributed collaborative environments involves the acquisition and use of extensive knowledge. Knowledge elements that play a critical role in guiding GDN activities are distributed across different work environments that are not seamlessly integrated with each other. We argue that integrating fragmented knowledge will improve the process of GDN in software development. In this paper, we present an approach to knowledge integration using traceability. Our approach comprises of: (a) a traceability framework that identifies the key knowledge elements that are to be integrated, and (b) a prototype system that supports the acquisition, integration, and use of knowledge elements represented by the traceability framework. We illustrate the usefulness of our approach with a case study in a software development organization.