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by bsder
2059 days ago
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> How the hell are you supposed to keep knowlage like this? By talking to people on a regular basis? This problem isn't new and even affects open source. Which people in the Linux kernel are experts on which USB drivers? You can look at commits, but that doesn't always reflect the reality on the ground of the people with the actual understanding of the detailed bits of the hardware. Unless you sit on the mailing list and chat server for a couple weeks, you won't figure this out. Big companies used to have this problem all the time back before ubiquitous communication. Some group would need knowledge about Subject A. They would appoint Person B in the group to be the liaison with Expert C who was in some other division--they would have to talk on the phone, fly to the the other division, etc. to maintain that knowledge Over time, Person B would become the "local" expert and would probably become a global expert as well. How would you find out who the experts are and where they are? You would tap your network and start walking it. Humans network--that's just how they are. |
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So it's like keeping data in a RAM instead of a persistent storage. Does not sound like a good practice. I would also say it does not scale.
The advice I usually hear from people running software houses is to have an internal KB. Even experts forget what they told 3 months ago or how the complex process was supposed to go like.
> How would you find out who the experts are and where they are?
Team Directory. Write down who knows what and how to reach them. People figure out in small, focused groups who knows what by seeing who delivers. You don't need to do it in a hallway.