Distributed Software Development Research Articles

Challenges and Barriers to Software Testing

Software development in a context where development locations are separated across geographical regions, either nearby or internationally, is quickly becoming a popular practice. This software development agreement is often mentioned as Global Software. "Global Software Development (GSD) is also known as Distributed Software Development (DSD) or Global Software Engineering (GSE)". Plans carried out by a scattered squad have been identified by way of a more dangerous and hard enterprise than projects carried out by teams working below a similar roof. As a result, considering the possible obstacles and appropriate mitigation techniques for GSD is critical for operating a successful project. Software development is divided into stages of requirements, analysis, designs, coding, and testing. The creation of software in globalized settings is frequent and significant in today's world of software development. This paper emphasizes the condition of software product transmission, which deals with software testing in an overseas site, as part of numerous globalized scenarios.

ChainAgile: A framework for the improvement of Scrum Agile distributed software development based on blockchain.

Software Development based on Scrum Agile in a distributed development environment plays a pivotal role in the contemporary software industry by facilitating software development across geographic boundaries. However, in the past different frameworks utilized to address the challenges like communication and collaboration in scrum agile distributed software development (SADSD) were notably inadequate in transparency, security, traceability, geographically dispersed location work agreements, geographically dispersed teamwork effectiveness, and trust. These deficiencies frequently resulted in delays in software development and deployment, customer dissatisfaction, canceled agreements, project failures, and disputes over payments between customers and development teams. To address these challenges of SADSD, this paper proposes a new framework called ChainAgile, which leverages blockchain technology. ChainAgile employs a private Ethereum blockchain to facilitate the execution of smart contracts. These smart contracts cover a range of functions, including acceptance testing, secure payments, requirement verification, task prioritization, sprint backlog, user story design and development and payments with the automated distribution of payments via digital wallets to development teams. Moreover, in the ChainAgile framework, smart contracts also play a pivotal role in automatically imposing penalties on customers for making late payments or for no payments and penalties on developers for completing the tasks that exceed their deadlines. Furthermore, ChainAgile effectively addresses the scalability limitations intrinsic in blockchain technology by incorporating the Interplanetary File System (IPFS) is used for storage solutions as an off-chain mechanism. The experimental results conclusively show that this innovative approach substantially improves transparency, traceability, coordination, communication, security, and trust for both customers and developers engaged in scrum agile distributed software development (SADSD).

Enterprise architecture contribution in distributed agile software development

AbstractGeographically distributed agile development may experience a high failure rate due to communication issues, which has a negative influence on project performance. One suggested solution in the literature is to enhance both communication and project performance by implementing agile enterprise architecture. However, the empirical evidence that supports this claim is still scarce. To address this gap, this study empirically explores the role of agile enterprise architecture as an artifact in distributed agile development. The findings of an in‐depth qualitative case study from a dispersed agile development organization that involves teams distributed over three locations are used in this work. Over 2 months, data was gathered by interviewing 12 key members of the team and watching three Sprint sessions of agile software development. Text analysis qualitative approach was used to analyze the data. The findings imply that agile enterprise architecture has a positive effect on distributed agile software development communication, quality, and functionality. Agile enterprise architecture may also support on‐time completion, but a trade‐off with on‐budget may be necessary. These findings provide valuable insights, frameworks, and best practices that support organizations in achieving greater agility, collaboration, and success in their distributed software development initiatives. As this is one of the first studies to look at the influence of agile enterprise architecture on distributed agile software development communication and performance, further research is needed to confirm and expand on the conclusions of this study.

Interaction design in distributed software development: a systematic mapping study

ABSTRACT Context: Interaction design has been consolidated as a practice with potential to support interactive systems projects. Most interaction design solutions (methods, techniques, and tools) have been created to be used in environments with co-located participants. However, the number of software projects that are developed in environments with geographically distributed stakeholders has increased. Despite some research efforts, little is known about how the scientific literature has addressed interaction design in distributed software development (DSD). Objective: To provide an overview of studies that have been conducted on interaction design in DSD. Method: A systematic mapping study was conducted to identify, synthesise and analyse papers related to interaction design in DSD, and 32 papers were included and classified in relation to the research type and research topic. Results: Through the analysis of the included papers, this paper provides an overview of existing interaction design studies in the context of DSD. This paper presents an analysis of the main characteristics of interaction design in DSD, such as the level of dispersion of stakeholders, the solutions adopted (approaches, methods, techniques, tools), the involvement of end users, and the performance of designers and HCI specialists. We have identified gaps and a taxonomy of six research topics. The findings of this study also allowed us to propose an agenda for future research on distributed interaction design. Conclusion: This paper contributes to the body of knowledge of interaction design at the frontier of research between HCI and DSD by (i) providing an overview of research efforts on interaction design in DSD, (ii) presenting an overview of how interaction design has been conducted in DSD projects, and (iii) identifying research gaps and discuss future research directions emerged from the study.

A new taxonomy of global software development best practices using prioritization based on a fuzzy system

AbstractEffective management of development projects is crucial to delivering high‐quality software within time and budget constraints. However, organizing geographically distributed software development activities presents unique challenges, including difficulties in face‐to‐face interaction and coordination. To assist the global software development community in updating and developing new project management techniques, identifying and prioritizing best practices is essential. This study aims to develop a taxonomy based on the prioritization of management practices for software development, drawing from empirical data. Fifty‐five best practices associated with the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK) fields were identified from the existing literature. The study also empirically examines the acceptability and relevance of these practices within the industry. An analytic hierarchy process within a fuzzy system is employed to prioritize these practices based on their importance in managing global software development.

Classifying Release Notes Explanations using BERT: An Initial Step to Automatic Versioning in Distributed Software Development

Distributed Software Development is the practice of developing software with a team in different locations. The process of software versioning is crucial in distributed development as it helps in keeping track of the various software versions that are being developed and maintaining projects. In transition of each new version, the development team present release notes that inform all team members and stakeholders are aware of changes and provide tracking project progresses. Release notes consist information about the features, bug fixes, and other changes included in a new software release. Generating release notes and determining the release transition timing for new software versions can be costly. Despite of there are some papers about generating release notes in the literature, there is not any study about automatic versioning. In this context, the aim of this paper is to predict the development types in release notes as the first phase of an automated versioning tool that is planned to be built in future work. We used BERT which is one of the popular transformers to classify developments of release notes and our model has 86% accuracy rate on our own public dataset. Additionally, we presented insights on the model's decision-making process in the context of explainable AI using ELI5 library.

GitHub Actions: The Impact on the Pull Request Process

Software projects frequently use automation tools to perform repetitive activities in the distributed software development process. Recently, GitHub introduced GitHub Actions, a feature providing automated workflows for software projects. Understanding and anticipating the effects of adopting such technology is important for planning and management. Our research investigates how projects use GitHub Actions, what the developers discuss about them, and how project activity indicators change after their adoption. Our results indicate that 1,489 out of 5,000 most popular repositories (almost 30% of our sample) adopt GitHub Actions and that developers frequently ask for help implementing them. Our findings also suggest that the adoption of GitHub Actions leads to more rejections of pull requests (PRs), more communication in accepted PRs and less communication in rejected PRs, fewer commits in accepted PRs and more commits in rejected PRs, and more time to accept a PR. We found similar results when segmenting our results by categories of GitHub Actions. We suggest practitioners consider these effects when adopting GitHub Actions on their projects.

Stress, motivation, and performance in global software engineering

AbstractThe objective of this study is to analyze the current perspective as regards knowledge related to what causes stress or motivates developers, how these two aspects are related to each other, and how this in turn affects their performance in the sphere of Global Software Development and how these can be controlled. This paper presents the results obtained after conducting a systematic mapping study of literature in order to analyze how stress, motivation, and performance affect the project members in Global Software Development teams. We carried out a systematic mapping of published studies dealing with stress, motivation, and performance in global software engineering. A total of 118 papers dealing with this subject were found. The literature analyzed provided a relatively significant quantity of data referring to the impact that the characteristics of distributed software development projects have on the performance and productivity of teams, along with the actions taken to improve that performance. However, when focusing on the analysis of the impact of this type of projects on team members' motivation, and on the actions that can be taken to improve that motivation, we discovered that the number of works decreases considerably and that works referring to the impact of this kind of development on developers' stress were virtually non‐existent, as were those concerning ways in which to improve that stress. We are, therefore, of the opinion that it is necessary to carry out in‐depth research into the aspects of working in distributed teams that may have a negative impact on developers' levels of motivation and stress, along with what could be beneficial in order to improve levels of motivation and decrease levels of stress.

Challenges of Working from Home in Software Development During Covid-19 Lockdowns

The COVID-19 pandemic in 2020/2021/2022 and the resulting lockdowns forced many companies to switch to working from home, swiftly, on a large scale, and without preparation. This situation created unique challenges for software development, where individual software professionals had to shift instantly from working together at a physical venue to working remotely from home. Our research questions focus on the challenges of software professionals who work from home due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which we studied empirically at a German bank. We conducted a case study employing a mixed methods approach. We aimed to cover both the breadth of challenges via a quantitative survey, as well as a deeper understanding of these challenges via the follow-up qualitative analysis of 15 semi-structured interviews. In this article, we present the key impediments employees faced during the crisis, as well as their similarities and differences to the known challenges in distributed software development (DSD). We also analyze the employees’ job satisfaction and how the identified challenges impact job satisfaction. In our study, we focus on challenges in communication, collaboration, tooling, and management. The findings of the study provide insights into this emerging topic of high industry relevance. At the same time, the study contributes to the existing academic research on work from home and on the COVID-19 pandemic aftermath.

Pull Request Decisions Explained: An Empirical Overview

<italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Context</i> : The pull-based development model is widely used in open source projects, leading to the emergence of trends in distributed software development. One aspect that has garnered significant attention concerning pull request decisions is the identification of explanatory factors. <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Objective</i> : This study builds on a decade of research on pull request decisions and provides further insights. We empirically investigate how factors influence pull request decisions and the scenarios that change the influence of such factors. <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Method</i> : We identify factors influencing pull request decisions on GitHub through a systematic literature review and infer them by mining archival data. We collect a total of 3,347,937 pull requests with 95 features from 11,230 diverse projects on GitHub. Using these data, we explore the relations among the factors and build mixed effects logistic regression models to empirically explain pull request decisions. <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Results</i> : Our study shows that a small number of factors explain pull request decisions, with that concerning whether the integrator is the same as or different from the submitter being the most important factor. We also note that the influence of factors on pull request decisions change with a change in context; e.g., the area hotness of pull request is important only in the early stage of project development, however it becomes unimportant for pull request decisions as projects become mature.

MVVM Demonstration Using C# WPF

Purpose: Nowadays, MVVM (Model-View View-Model) is the proven architecture for distributed software development. It encourages the development of the software components by the different independent teams and easy integration at the final stage. The individual researcher prefers direct coding or tightly coupled software modules. The Model is rapid and efficient but might create maintainability issues later. So from day one, we should introduce the best design model. In this scenario, the MVVM model is the major player. Here, we present how to implement MVVM into our project through a simple task. We will design the user interface, which is part of the UX design team, and then add functionality, which is the programming part. Finally, we will do integration and execution. The code used in this project is available to download from GitHub. Design/Methodology/Approach: We are creating a C# WPF project inside the visual studio community edition. Then we segregate our activity into two parts. In the first part, we make a Model for our project. After that, we design the user interface. The user interface interacts with the user to display the data and receive inputs from the user. It is the presentation or view layer. After completing it, we add the required view model interaction logic. Finally, we integrate all components and run the project. Findings/Result: Through the research, we realize the importance of the MVVM concept. It is a good software architecture; the researcher who has gone through the documents will find out how to implement the MVVM into their project. Some essential procedures are presented concisely so they can be adopted quickly. This architecture is independent of any language. So once we grab it, it can be implemented in our project, whatever the language we use. Originality/Value: Several documents on MVVM design using WPF are available worldwide. Most of the documents are elaborative and descriptive. It is tricky to extract the required information from long-duration content as fast-track space. Here we demonstrate practically. Using the documents as a reference, the researcher can easily integrate the MVVM concept into their project. Paper Type: Experimental-based Research.

Developing a knowledge-based perspective of coordination in global software development

Purpose This study aims to develop a model for coordination and communication overhead in distributed software development through case study analysis in the Indian outsourcing software industry. The model is based on business knowledge, which can be classified as domain, regulatory, strategic, business process and operation process knowledge as per existing literature. Design/methodology/approach Double case study method was used to verify an existing knowledge–management framework of software development from the literature. The stakeholders of both the cases were interviewed, and project documents were verified to reach conclusions. Findings The findings supported the business knowledge classification from the literature. The concept can be used to analyze the software project in a distributed environment. Research limitations/implications The research work findings are based only on two case studies. The study findings cannot be generalized and should be used as a learning tool. There can be large variations of project characteristics with differences in business knowledge requirements. The research shows the importance of business knowledge transfer in global software development. Practical implications Projects managers in the distributed software development environment can use the findings in project planning and work allocation for better control over cost and schedule, etc. Originality/value There is little research works attempted to study the business knowledge classification in the global software industry making the research novel.

Agile software development: Impacts and challenges within distributed teams

In agile software development, rapid tasks, which are called the story and collaboration between team members are a necessary requirement. To achieve this, teams need to adhere steps such as active meetings, face-to-face meetings, continuous meetings and cooperation between the work team. However, Separation through geographical distance, time zones, and culture has an influence on the ability of members of a distributed team to work with each other as one team in distributed software development. We determined that trust among members of a distributed team is critical for bridging spatial, behavioral, and cultural barriers so that they can collaborate as one team. In this paper, we discuss the obstacles and challenges of using Agile in a distributed team’s environment and recommend a proposed solution of four steps and procedures to solve these issues. The validation of the proposed solution is done by using a survey and the results indicate that communication efficiency has positive effects and found encouraging effects on functionality, quality, and on-budget completion.

SUPPORTING THE CHOICE OF THE BEST-FIT AGILE MODEL USING FITRADEOFF

The goal of this study is to propose a decision model for supporting the choice of the best-agile model, based on the Flexible and Interactive Tradeoff (FITradeoff) method. This study provides the definition of an extensive set of 38 measurable criteria that were considered for evaluation of the most popular agile process models used in small and medium-scale enterprises. To illustrate the application of the model, we applied it to a set of alternatives that includes DSDM, SCRUM, XP2 and Crystal and an experienced project manager acted as our decision maker during the interactive elicitation process of the FITradeoff. The results show that the FITradeoff is very valuable for this class of problem because of its strong mathematical foundation and the possibility of combining two different ways for modeling the preferences of decision makers, which makes the process cognitively easier than other multi-criteria methods and increase the confidence on the results. Although our study focuses on the context of small and medium-scale companies for software development, the approach can be used to other types of environments, including distributed software development and large enterprises.

Identification and Classification of Risk Factors in Distributed Agile Software Development

Distributed Agile Software Development (DASD) is an amalgamation of Agile Software Development (ASD) with Distributed Software Development (DSD). Although DASD integrates the speed benefits of ASD with the cost benefits of DSD, however, it brings along various risk factors that arise due to the fact that both ASD and DSD works on a different set of principles. These associated risks must be addressed and managed well in time for the successful completion of the project. This paper reviews the current literature and presents the current challenges of Risk Management in the DASD environment. This paper also determines 71 risk factors associated with DASD and analyses them based on their causes and sources. Further, these risk factors are segregated into 11 different categories. Timely management of these risks may reduce the uncertainty of project failure in the DASD environment.

C2M: a maturity model for the evaluation of communication in distributed software development.

Communication is essential in any software development project, particularly those globally distributed where geographical, temporal, and cultural distance may hinder the effectiveness of communication. The challenges imposed by distance often characterize communication as still one of the main drawbacks of globally distributed projects. Therefore, establishing communication processes and practices is relevant to support a team’s work. These processes and practices need to be updated and aligned with the team’s needs. Thus, assessing and evaluating the maturity of such communication processes and practices is paramount. This article presents a Communication Maturity Model called C2M which aims to help organizations identify the maturity of communication-related aspects by providing an approach for revealing what practices need to be improved. The model is composed of 4 levels of maturity (causal, partially managed, managed and reflective) and 4 areas of maturity (people, project, organizational and engineering) which are organized into 15 maturity factors, each factor comprising a set of practices. The model has 58 practices and each has its specific objectives. The model was empirically developed and evaluated in three well-defined phases. In the conception phase, methodological procedures (Tertiary Study, Systematic Literature Review, and Interviews) were carried out in order to gather relevant information for designing the first version of the C2M model (alpha version). Then, in the refinement phase, two focus group meetings were held in two organizations in order to identify how effectively the model attends its purpose. The results led to a second version of the C2M model (beta version), analyzed by a survey with experts who assessed the representation of the third version of the C2M model—omega version (evaluation phase). All results achieved so far suggest that the model can assist in discovering the maturity level of the communication processes and practices in globally distributed projects. Future works will focus on developing a software tool to help with self-assessment.

Measuring Impact of Cloud Computing and Knowledge Management in Software Development and Innovation

For organizations, knowledge is a valuable intangible asset that should be obtained, preserved, shared, and applied to assist decision-making. Cloud computing and knowledge management systems bring together technology and organizational methods to help organizations manage their knowledge and enhance their performance. This work investigates how organizations adopt software development and distribution innovation models using ubiquitous computing more specifically cloud-based software services appraise knowledge management (KM) practices. A combined hybrid research model has been developed using extended Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) and Technology-Organization-Environment (TOE) with KM practices. Series of statistical results using structural equation modeling performed on data collected through an online survey from 983 professionals working in distributed software development (DSD) and innovation worldwide are used to put hypotheses to the test. The results of the study indicate that KM practices (knowledge accessibility, storage, application, and sharing) along with TOE (complexity, compatibility, relative advantage, security, privacy and trust, and reputation) have a substantial and positive impact on the adoption of cloud-based software services. Coordination and communication concerns are the backbones of successful practicing distributed development and innovation. Furthermore, results indicate acceptance of the moderating role of geographical (cultural) difference in examining the impact of KM practices and cloud services.

Identifying the Maturity of Communication Processes in Distributed Software Development of Two Software Organizations

Identifying the Maturity of Communication Processes in Distributed Software Development of Two Software Organizations

DEVELOPMENT OF AN EDUCATIONAL SECURE CLOUD DATA STORAGE INTEGRATED INTO THE INFRASTRUCTURE OF THE BELARUSIAN STATE UNIVERSITY

The article discusses the basic principles and approaches to the design and development of a secure cloud repository, provides a rationale for the creation of such hardware and software systems. Architectural solutions for creating a secure repository using cloud technologies are described, the main approaches to the development and selection of fault-tolerant distributed storage software are identified, and the development of a module that provides access to storage system resources using cloud technologies is described. A feature of the proposed approach is the combined use of a cloud file system and a software module for providing cloud storage services integrated into the infrastructure of the institution. Unlike traditional storage systems, the proposed approach does not have a bottleneck in the form of a finite speed of the data access interface, and also has unlimited system scalability. The experience of creating a prototype of a secure cloud repository integrated into the Belarusian State University infrastructure is given. A feature of the created solutions is that they allow to provide reliable and fault-tolerant storage within the country, as well as provide mass user access to storage resources. The proposed integrated approach allows to build industry and country cloud geographically distributed data warehouses that provide high performance and scalability. The development of the proposed solutions will ensure the accumulation of digital data in the country, the security of stored data, the creation and development of information systems that require a large accumulation of data, as well as the implementation of an import substitution strategy in the field of creating cloud data storages.

A Critique on Task Allocation Processes in Distributed Agile Software Development

Distributed agile software development is implemented to tackle the increasing competition and changing requirements of the software industry. It inspires the development of emergent software applications and supports user satisfaction with fast delivery to market at low cost. Distributed software development presents a complex distributed team structure of the software industry having various workplaces. Distributed agile software development requires effective and well-organized decisions during task allocation. Task allocation is a challenging activity across the spectrum of committed software developers in a distributed environment. Effective task allocation under the pressure of achieving project objectives is a complex management problem in distributed agile software development. Task allocation process is proposed to support effective task allocation in distributed agile software development. Firstly, we identify different aspects of the task allocation context to explore the basic requirements of decision-making in DASD. Based on the information related to the identified aspects, different types of process activities are defined; those should be fulfilled to support the task allocation decisions. Task allocation process during software project planning requires comprehensive information about various factors that influence decision-making. The proposed task allocation process is evaluated based on the process activities. None of the current state-of-the-art research works focus on an approach for task allocation that completely fulfills all activities related to high-level processes or low-level processes. We fill this gap by identifying, classifying, sequencing, and proposing these activities that can be used to realize a methodical approach for a generic task allocation process in a distributed agile software development setup.