Globally distributed software development project performance

Ramasubbu, Narayan; Balan, Rajesh Krishna

doi:10.1145/1287624.1287643

Cited by 76 publications

(51 citation statements)

References 33 publications

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“…SDPs are conducted in the form of teams which are comprised of individuals' different expertise [35]. Other soft skills that are also associated with SDPs are critical thinking and problem solving.…”

Section: Q1: General Soft Skills That Contribute To the Success Of Sdpsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Soft Skills for Software Project Team Members

Mtsweni¹,

Hörne²,

Poll³

2016

IJCTE

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Abstract-Software development usually occurs in the context of software project management (SPM). An often cited challenge in the area of software project management is the high failure rate of software development projects (SPDs). One of the factors contributing to the failure of SDPs is the lack of soft issues, also known as soft skills or human aspects. The main purpose of this research was to identify and categorise the soft skills that facilitate the delivery of successful SDPs. To this end a survey was conducted in the form of a questionnaire as the research instrument. The results of the survey underwent a quantitative analysis and it was found that a variety of soft skills are important in facilitating the delivery of successful SDPs. Although a wide range of soft skills were identified, not all soft skills can be considered to be of crucial or equal importance. Index Terms-Soft skills, software development projects, software project failure.

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Section: Q1: General Soft Skills That Contribute To the Success Of Sdpsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Soft Skills for Software Project Team Members

Mtsweni¹,

Hörne²,

Poll³

2016

IJCTE

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“…The next subsection provides an overview of studies that have reported implications on quality of GSD settings. Ramasubbu and Balan (2007) found that distributed development had a negative impact on quality in their studied case. Customer problem reports were used as an indicator for conformance quality, i.e., adherence to customer specifications, in the study.…”

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 83%

“…GSD is characterized by highly geographically dispersed teams working on developing the same software product. GSD settings have been reported to negatively impact quality, for example due to challenges in sustaining effective levels of communication and coordination practices (Ramasubbu and Balan, 2007). Thus attaining the potential GSD benefits, such as cost reduction, should not be taken for granted (Conchúir et al, 2006).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Handover of managerial responsibilities in global software development: a case study of source code evolution and quality

2014

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Context: Studies report on the negative effect on quality in global software development (GSD) due to communication and coordination related challenges. However, empirical studies reporting on the magnitude of the effect are scarce. Research Method: This paper presents findings from an embedded explanatory case study on the change in quality over time, across multiple releases, for products that were developed in a GSD setting. The GSD setting involved periods of distributed development between geographically dispersed sites as well as a handover of project management responsibilities between the involved sites. Investigations were performed on two medium-sized products from a company that is part of a large multinational corporation. Quality is investigated quantitatively using defect data, and measures that quantify two source code properties, size and complexity. Observations were triangulated with subjective views from company representatives. Results and Findings: There were no observable indications that the distribution of work or handover of project management responsibilities had an impact on quality on both products. Among the product-, process-, and people-related success factors, we identified welldesigned product architectures, early handover planning, support from the sending site to the receiving site after the handover, and skilled employees at the involved sites. Overall, these results can be useful input for decision-makers who are considering distributing development work between globally dispersed sites or handing over project management responsibilities from one site to another. Moreover, our study shows that analyzing the evolution of size and complexity properties of a product's source code can provide valuable information to support decision-making during similar projects. Finally, the strategy used by the company to relocate responsibilities can also be considered as an alternative for software transfers, which have been linked with a decline in efficiency, productivity and quality.

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“…Other challenges and issues in globally distributed development have been investigated empirically; for example, the effect of time zones [17], [9], [20]; the role of development processes [11]; the impact on productivity and quality [24], [3]; the usage of contracts [23]; and the role of dispersion [25].…”

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

Awareness and Merge Conflicts in Distributed Software Development

Estler

Nordio

Furia

et al. 2014

2014 IEEE 9th International Conference on Global Software Engineering

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Abstract-Collaborative software development requires programmers to coordinate their work and merge individual contributions into a consistent shared code base. Traditionally, coordination follows a series of "update-modify-commit" cycles, where merge conflicts arise upon committing if individual modifications have diverged and must be explicitly reconciled. Researchers have been suggesting that providing timely awareness information about "who's changing what" may not only help deal with conflicts but, more generally, improve the effectiveness of collaboration.This paper investigates the impact of awareness information in the context of globally distributed software development. Based on an analysis of data from 105 student developers constituting 12 development teams located in different countries, we analyze, among other things: 1) the frequency of merge conflicts and insufficient awareness; 2) the impact of distribution on team awareness; 3) the perceived impact of conflicts and lack of awareness on productivity, motivation, and project punctuality. Our findings include: 1) lack of awareness occurs more frequently than merge conflicts; 2) information about remote team members is missing roughly as often as information about co-located ones; 3) insufficient awareness information affects more negatively programmer's performance than merge conflicts.

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Globally distributed software development project performance

Cited by 76 publications

References 33 publications

Soft Skills for Software Project Team Members

Soft Skills for Software Project Team Members

Handover of managerial responsibilities in global software development: a case study of source code evolution and quality

Awareness and Merge Conflicts in Distributed Software Development

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