Effects of Geographical, Socio-cultural and Temporal Distances on Communication in Global Software Development during Requirements Change Management - A Pilot Study

Abstract

Trend of software development is changing rapidly most of the software development organizations are trying to globalize their activities throughout the world. This trend leads towards a phenomenon called Global Software Development (GSD). The main reason behind the software globalization is its various benefits. Besides these benefits, software organizations are facing various challenges. One of these challenges is communication which is considered a big challenge in GSD and it becomes more complicated during the Requirements Change Management (RCM) process due to three factors, they are Geographical, Socio-cultural and Temporal distances. This paper presents a framework which shows the effect of these factors on communication during RCM process in GSD. Communication is the core function of collaboration which allows information to be exchanged between the team members. A pilot study has been conducted in three GSD organizations. A quantitative research method has been used to collect data. The findings from the survey data show that these three factors have a strong negative impact on communication process in GSD.