Condensing Architectural Knowledge from Unstructured Textual Media in Agile GSD Teams

Agile Global Software Development (AGSD) is a reality, since nowadays software products are required to get into the market with more speed than before. This situation has pushed Global Software Development (GSD) companies to adopt lighter ways to develop software (Agile Software Development - ASD) to satisfy market demands. However, AGSD companies have encountered increased technical debt and architectural knowledge (AK) vaporization, mainly because the inherent differences between ASD and GSD, especially in documentation handling. This paper describes a research project in which it is proposed to exploit the AK that is recorded in unstructured textual electronic media (UTEM) generally used in AGSD, in order to decrease the problems of software evolution and maintenance, caused by a lack of adequate AK. Until now, the preliminary results of this research show that this approach could be feasible in AGSD environments.