KMD Quest-SW: A Diagnosis of Knowledge Management Addressed to Software Industry SMEs

The software industry depends intensively on its actor's knowledge to develop its products. This knowledge is crucial to leverage innovation and market sustainability within the software industry companies. Knowledge Management (KM) processes are accomplished in the small- and medium-sized software industry companies daily, however, sometimes not formally. This paper proposes a questionnaire aimed to diagnose KM in small- and medium-sized enterprises (SME) of the software industry, namely, KMD Quest-SW. The KMD Quest-SW was designed to fill up the gap of KM diagnosis in SME in the software industry. The KMD Quest-SW has 46 statements distributed in six dimensions: so-called creation process, registration process, knowledge sharing, knowledge use, innovation process, and knowledge in the software industry. From the software industry perspective, our proposal appears as a promising tool to diagnose and map the knowledge flow in SMEs. From a scientific perspective, the questionnaire breaks new grounds for KM theoretically and practitioners to be adapted for other SME companies interested in KM.