Key barriers for global software product development organizations

Abstract

Increasingly, software products development companies are attempting to make transition from traditional centralized local development to global development. This transition is taking place due to intense competition, availability of high quality and low cost software professionals in various countries, and advent of communication and information technologies to link the disperse groups. Due to a significant lack of research on the global software product (GSP) development organization, companies are commonly attempting to develop standardized software products by using an adhoc global project organization. In making transition from local development of software product to global development, developers are facing great difficulties in setting up an appropriate GSP development organization and executing GSP development. Most of the companies are not obtaining the expected benefits for their GSP development efforts and some of them are failing completely. The research was carried out by reviewing literature and conducting a multiple case study. This study introduces GSP development organization and identifies the key barriers that are encountered by the GSP development organization. The research will guide companies, who are involved in the development of GSP, to implement appropriate organizations, to avoid the challenges and to achieve the GSP development goals. This research also suggests some future research directions.