Analytical Modeling of Software Development Teams in Globally Distributed Projects

Abstract

Abstract-Global software engineering is an area of increasing research challenges, in which teams are dispersed in multiple sites collaborating across borders and time zones. Although its potential competitive advantages, globally distributed projects must deal with difficulties when distributing resources such as teams with cultural diversities, different skills and experience levels. Both industry and academia demonstrate a special interest in the modeling and prediction, mainly representing systems in order to extract interesting indices, for example, evaluating whether or not a project will succeed. This paper demonstrates the usefulness of analytical modeling techniques in order to predict the outcome of geographically-distributed projects. We focus our attention to the participants interaction and its interplay when it affects team productivity. The models are parametrized considering single-site and multi-site scenarios, varying resources availability, teams expertise and support levels. Performance indices from both scenarios are presented and conclusion indicates possible model extensions.

Using SAN formalism to evaluate Follow-The-Sun project scenarios

“…In this context, recent studies have applied stochastic automata networks in software engineering area to evaluate software development projects (Czekster et al, 2010(Czekster et al, , 2011Fernandes et al, 2011). Besides, according to the literature review there are several challenges to simulate projects with teams geographically distributed, such as time, cost and teams composition.…”

“…Conclusions point out numerical results as well as future works for new models. Czekster et al (2010) presented in recent research stochastic models for software development projects, in order to evaluate communication and availability of global software development teams. Following this context, it was created a basic stochastic model for FTS projects evaluation (Czekster et al, 2011) and it still exists opportunity to capture other important aspects of global software development projects using FTS configuration, such as handoff efficiency, teams capacity and others.…”

“…This section presented project aspects that will be used as part of performance evaluation scenarios. Global software development stochastic modeling and FTS stochastic modeling are challenges already discussed by Czekster et al (2010Czekster et al ( , 2011 and Urdangarin et al (2008).…”

“…Houston et al (2001) have described an approach for modeling risk factors simulating their effects as means of supporting certain software development risk management activities. Related works to stochastic modeling and simulations have been developed through the dynamics of software projects (Cummings et al, 2009;Padberg, 2002) as the usage of analytical modeling for variability performance analysis of software development teams (Czekster et al, 2010;Avritzer and Lima, 2009). SAN -Stochastic Automata Networks (Plateau, 1985;Brenner et al, 2005) is a formalism based on Markov Chains (Stewart, 1994) that provides a modular and a high-level abstraction of the model description.…”

Setting Up a Stochastic Model for Teams Working in a Follow-the-Sun Environment

“…Related works for stochastic modeling and simulations are developed through the dynamic specification of software projects [3], [4], as the usage analytical modeling for variability performance analysis of software development teams [5], [6], [7]. Stochastic Automata Networks (SAN) [8], [9] is a formalism based on Markov Chains [10] that provides an abstraction of the model description.…”