Discovering Problem-Solving Knowledge in Business Emails - Traceability in Software Design Using Computer Mediated Communication

Abstract

This article addresses issues related to problem solving knowledge detection in business emails. The objective is to discover if there are traces of knowledge left in emails and how to detect it. Finding patterns and structure of interest in emails corpora is a difficult task, but it is a necessity for companies in order to keep traces and learn lessons from previous projects. Especially in software development project that can be very costly and time consuming. In this paper, we present a general method for discovering problem solving requests in professional emails using mixed techniques from pragmatics analysis and knowledge engineering. This study takes place in the project memory work aiming at the traceability and structuration of knowledge in daily business environment.