Global Software Development

Competency Leader

Implementing Successful Global Software Development

In the global economy, increasing numbers of software engineers are expected to operate in a distributed environment (Herbsleb, 2007). In this environment, geographical distance introduces physical separation between team members and management (Carmle, 2001), temporal distance hinders and limits opportunities for direct contact and cooperation (Agerfalk & Fitzgerald, 2006) and cultural distance negatively impacts on the level of understanding and appreciation of the activities and efforts of remote colleagues and teams (Casey, 2009a, Rutlowski et al., 2002). The lack of a common native language known as linguistic distance creates further barriers to communication (Carmel & Tiza, 2005, Herbsleb, 2007, Krishna et al., 2004). Therefore, Global Software Development (GSD) has complexities over and above those experienced in local software development (Carmel & Agarwal, 2001, Casey, 2009b, Damian & Zowghi, 2003, Herbsleb, 2007). These difficulties are illustrated in Figure 1 (Richardson & Casey, 2006). Distance in itself introduces barriers and complexity. The need for effective coordination, visibility, communication and cooperation are key variables for success. However, these are negatively impacted by distance and this increases the barriers and complexity faced by those managing global software teams.

GSD research carried out within Lero – the Irish Software Engineering Research Centre has focused on understanding the problems which Software Engineers face when implementing GSD, and from this understanding, developing models and frameworks. We have carried out many empirical studies where we have interviewed, observed and studied documentation within industry project teams. We have published extensively about the problems and solutions (see here). Our current GSD research includes:

Development and evaluation of the Global Teaming Model which can be used by organisations as a basis for implementing Global Software Development within their organisations;
Development and evaluation of a Global Teaming Model for Financial Services in conjunction with a Financial Services Software Development company;
Development and evaluation of the Global Teaming Expert System which will present software development organisations with an implementation plan for GSD;
Development and evaluation of a Global Software Development model for Agile methods;
Development and evaluation of a Capability Model for Global Software Development Project Management.

(It should be noted that a variety of terms exist: Distributed Software Development, (DSD), Global Software Development (GSD), or Global Software Engineering (GSE). In Lero, we use the term Global Software Development.)

References:

P.J. Ågerfalk and B. Fitzgerald, "Flexible and distributed software processes: old petunias in new bowls?" Communications of the ACM 49 (10), 2006, pp. 26 - 34

E. Carmel, "Global Software Teams: Collaboration Across Borders and Time Zones", Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1999.

E. Carmel and R. Agarwal, "Tactical Approaches for Alleviating Distance in Global Software Development", IEEE Software. 1(2), 2001, pp. 22-29.

E. Carmel and P. Tjia, "Offshoring Information Tecnhnology: Sourcing and Outsourcing to a Global Workforce", Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2005.

V. Casey, "Leveraging or Exploiting Cultural Difference?" in 4th IEEE International Conference on Global Software Engineering (ICGSE) Limerick, Ireland. 2009a.

V. Casey, "Software Testing And Global Industry: Future Paradigms", Newcastle, UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2009b.

V. Casey and I. Richardson, Uncovering the Reality within Virtual Software Teams, International Conference on Global Software Engineering, ICGSE06, Florianopolis, Florianopolis, Brazil, 16-19 October 2006, IEEE Computer Society, CD Proceedings, ISBN 0-7695-2663-2.

D.E. Damian and D. Zowghi, "An Insight into the Interplay Between Culture, Conflict and Distance in Globally Distributed Requirements Negotiations" in Proceedings of the 36th International Conference on Systems Sciences (HICSS’03). Hawaii. 2003, pp. 1-10.

J.D. Herbsleb, "Global Software Engineering: The Future of Socio-technical Coordination" in Future of Software Engineering (FOSE'07) Minneapolis, MN, USA 2007, pp. 188 - 198

S. Krishna, S. Sahay, and G. Walsham, "Managing cross-cultural issues in global software outsourcing ", Communications of the ACM. 47(4), 2004, pp. 62 - 66.

A.F. Rutkowski, D.R. Vogel, M. Van Genuchten, T.M.A. Bemelmans, and M. Favier, "E-collaboration: The Reality of Virtuality", IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication. 45 (4), 2002, pp. 219 - 230