Global Software Development Teams Research Articles

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.

AGILE SOFTWARE ARCHITECTURE INGLOBAL SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT ENVIRONMENT:SYSTEMATIC LITERATURE MAPPING

In recent years, software development companies started to adopt Global Software Development (GSD) toexplore the benefits of this approach, mainly cost reduction. However, the GSD environment also brings more complexity and challenges. Some challenges are related to communication aspects like cultural differences, time zone, and language. This paper is the first step in an extensive study to understand if the software architecture can ease communication in GSD environments. We conducted a Systematic Literature Mapping (SLM) to catalog relevant studies about software architecture and GSD teams and identify potential practices for use in the software industry. This paper’s findings contribute to the GSD body of knowledge by exploring the impact of software architecture strategy on the GSD environment. It presents hypotheses regarding the relationship between software architecture and GSD challenges, which will guide future research.

Effect of Temporal Patterns on Task Cohesion in Global Software Development Teams

This work focuses on the analysis of temporal measures and their ability to predict task cohesion within global software development projects. Messages were collected from three software development projects that involved students from two different countries. The similarities and quantities of these interactions were computed and analyzed at individual and group levels. We proposed pacing similarity, pacing rate and synchrony, a set of temporal metrics measuring frequency and rhythm of team member’s interactions. Results showed a statistically significant negative correlation between pacing rate and task cohesion, which suggests that frequent communications increases the cohesion between team members. The study also found a positive correlation between synchrony and task cohesion, which indicates the importance of establishing a communication rhythm within members a team. In addition, the temporal models at individual and group-levels were found to be good predictors of task cohesion, which indicates the existence of a strong effect of frequent and rhythmic communications on cohesion related to the task.

Assessing Effects of Media Affordances and Information Security Awareness on Knowledge-Sharing in Global Software Development

ABSTRACT This study investigates the effects of media affordances and information security awareness on knowledge-sharing behavior among global software development (GSD) team members. Using survey data collected from 214 GSD team members, we identify three organizational media affordances based on prior affordance literature: awareness, searchability, and editability. Positive relationships are found between perceived media affordances and actualized media affordances. Two actualized affordances, awareness and editability, have significant relationships with knowledge-sharing behavior that are moderated by awareness of information security. We further find that occupational culture due to region affects some relationships among media affordances and knowledge-sharing behavior. This study contributes to the affordance literature by identifying the organizational media affordances related to knowledge-sharing behavior and showing that users' awareness of information security moderates the relationships of these media affordances on knowledge-sharing. This study provides managerial insights into how media's technical properties and users' awareness of information security shape members' knowledge-sharing.

Global virtual teams coordination mechanisms: building theory from research in software development

ABSTRACT The advent of globalisation has led to the growing use of global virtual teams (GVT) for software development. The use of such teams enables organisations to operate across national, economic and social, and cultural boundaries; this new form of teamwork presents challenges for traditional coordination mechanisms. Hence, a range of new operational problems for the coordination of software development teams have emerged due to the nature of virtual work: these are related to issues of geographical distance, language differences, time zone(s) differences, cultural differences, and trust. This paper applies a theoretical model drawn from prior research to explore the coordination mechanisms employed by a global virtual software development team in a major multi-national telecommunications organisation. The study analyses the impact that the aforementioned issues have on the effectiveness of project team coordination mechanisms and then develops a refined conceptual model to guide future research on global virtual software development teams. The findings also inform practice on the problems encountered in ensuring the effective coordination of such teams.

Towards Taxonomical-Based Situational Model to Improve the Quality of Agile Distributed Teams

At present, software organizations are developing software products that employ global software development (GSD) teams. Organizations tend to adopt new methodologies for global software development, among which is the use of agile in the GSD industry, which yields both benefits and challenges. However, software development teams do not consider situational needs that delay software delivery, resulting in the late discovery of incompatible assumptions and architecture level rework. In this study, we conduct a systematic literature review (SLR) to identify the situational factors that need to be considered by software development teams before developing a software product. We further present taxonomical classification and comprehensively map the situational factors that impact design development and advancement in the proposed Situational Agile Distributed Development (SADD) model. We propose 18 directed hypotheses against each situational factor that supports our SADD model. In order to evaluate our directed hypotheses, statistical analysis method is used, and the level of confidence of each directed hypothesis is validated. The result of our study confirms that global software development teams are highly reliant on the SADD Model. Our study will largely contribute by devising a multilevel taxonomy of situational factors that elevate the performance of global software development teams. This taxonomical classification will allow to better map the relationships between multiple situational factors and elevate the process of creating a holistic model to handle situational needs in the context of Agile Distributed Software Development (ADSD).

Identification and Prioritization of Agile Requirements Change Management Success Factors in the Domain of Global Software Development

The economic and strategic gains motivated the majority of software firms to adopt global software development (GSD). The adoption of GSD is not straightforward. The geographical distance between the GSD teams causes the various problems for the implementation of agile software development activities, particularly, that related to requirements change management in agile (ARCM). The objective of this study is to explore the success factors of ARCM in GSD context and prioritized them based on their significance. The study comprised of two steps: (1) identify the success factors of ARCM using systematic mapping study (SMS) and validate them with industry practitioners using questionnaire survey approach; (2) prioritize the identified success factors by applying the analytical hierarchy process (AHP) approach. A total of 21 success factors that are significant for ARCM process were identified using SMS and questionnaire survey study. The results of AHP shows that allocation of resources at overseas sites, 3C's (communication, coordination and control), geographically distributed change control board (CCB), RCM process improvement expertise and continuous top management support are the highest priority success factors of ARCM process in the context of GSD. The findings assist the practitioners to address the most priority success factors in order to successfully implement the ARCM activities in the domain of GSD.

Towards Scrum Based Agile Framework for Global Software Development Teams

Organizations are moving their workforce to guarantee matters of trade and profit where accounts are expected to be less expensive and provide better quality products with the accessibility of skilled labor. With the evident benefits, distributed teams often face challenges with reliable and efficient communication coordination patterns that lead towards project failure. In the rapidly growing software industry, it becomes critical for any business to have better management activities to acquire right processes and practices. Agile methods are considered as a remedy for mitigating distributed teams’ challenges, with their consistent focus on communication. Here, we intend to propose a tailored Scrum based solution for distributed teams that empowers anticipated communication and coordination throughout the development process. In the first phase of framework development we have evaluated the state of agile practices from both literature and industry; based on collected evidence and suggestive guidelines a scrum based agile framework was formulated. The Scrum is a project management method in Agile Methods family. Scrum is an iterative process that asks for incremental development of the product, includes cross functional development and testing teams. Evaluation results show that the proposed framework contributes positively to improve development process quality. We have performed theoretical as well as empirical evaluation to validate proposed framework. We have eight project managing rising aspects in DSD (Distributed Software Development) to evaluate the proposed framework.

Towards classifying sociocultural aspects in global software development

The geographical, temporal distances and socio-cultural differences are the biggest challenges for Global Software Development (GSD). In GSD, it is necessary to deal with behaviors, values and skills of the team members, conflicts, rework, delays, etc. can influence a software production process. The objective of this paper is to identify the sociocultural aspects and propose a classification structure under different analytical perspectives in order to offer adequate support to the management of GSD teams. A systematic mapping and proposal an approach that classifies aspects in three perspectives: collaboration, people and external. The analysis allows the project manager to make decisions about the performance of human resources and mitigate problems arising from communication, cooperation and coordination, generating better results in indicators of productivity, quality and efficiency of GSD teams.

ARSENAL-GSD: A framework for trust estimation in virtual teams based on sentiment analysis

ContextTechnology advances has enabled the emergence of virtual teams. In these teams, people are in different places and possibly over different time zones, making use of computer mediated communication to interact. At the same time distribution brings benefits, it poses challenges as the difficulty to develop trust, which is essential for team efficiency. ObjectiveIn this paper, we present ARSENAL-GSD, an automatic framework for detecting trust among members of global software development teams based on sentiment analysis. MethodsTo design ARSENAL-GSD we made a literature review to identify trust evidences, especially those that could be captured or inferred from the automatic analysis of data generated by members’ interactions in a versioning system. We applied a survey to validate the framework and evidences found. ResultsOn a scale of 0–9, evidences were evaluated as having importance greater or equal to 5.23, and the extraction techniques used to estimate them were considered as good enough. Regarding differences between subjects profile, no difference was found in responses of participants with theoretical knowledge/none and those with medium/high knowledge in GSD, except for the evidence mimicry, which was considered more important for the group of participants with medium/high knowledge in GSD. ConclusionWe concluded that our framework is valid and trust information provided by it could be used to allocate members to a new team and/or, to monitor them during project development.

Software integration in global software development: Challenges for GSD vendors

Context The advances in information and communication technologies have revolutionized the software development environment from local to global software development (GSD). This revolution also created challenges for vendor organizations. Vendors face challenges in integrating the components developed independently by GSD teams into a final working product. Objective The objectives of the current study is to find out those critical barriers/challenges that hinder the integration process at any stage in the GSD environment for different types and size of projects. Methodology For achieving the objectives we initially conducted a comprehensive systematic literature review (SLR). We searched 6 digital libraries and also followed the snowballing technique. The data was extracted from a total of 88 finally selected papers. Findings of the SLR study were then empirically validated through a questionnaire survey in GSD industry. A total of 96 experts from 22 different countries participated in the survey. Results We have found a total of 16 barriers/challenges among which ten barriers are ranked as critical barriers/challenges. Some of the top ranked barriers are “lack of communication,” “lack of proper documentation,” “lack of compatibility,” and “architecture mismatch.” The findings of our industrial survey are mostly coherent with the SLR findings. However, there is a difference in ranks of the various barriers/challenges across the 2 data sets (SLR and industrial survey). The identified challenges need to be properly addressed by software vendors to reduce the complexity of the integration process in GSD projects. Conclusion We found that the severity of these barriers increases in large size projects. On the other hand, bespoke products are more affected by “lack of communication,” while off-the-shelf–based projects face integration problems due to “lack of compatibility,” “architecture mismatch,” and “wrong off the shelf product selection and customization”.

The Use of Kanban to Alleviate Collaboration and Communication Challenges of Global Software Development

Aim/Purpose: This paper aims to describe how various Kanban elements can help alleviate two prominent types of challenges, communication and collaboration in Global Software Development (GSD). Background: Iterative and Lean development methodologies like Kanban have gained significance in the software development industry, both in the co-located and globally distributed contexts. However, little is known on how such methodologies can help mitigate various challenges in that occur in a globally distributed software development context. Methodology: The study was conducted using a single-case study based on a general inductive approach to analysis and theory development. Through the literature review, collaboration and communication challenges that GSD teams face were identified. Data collected through semi-structured interviews was then inductively analyzed to describe how the case-study teams employed various Kanban elements to mitigate communication and collaboration challenges they face during GSD. Findings: The study found that some Kanban elements, when properly employed, can help alleviate collaboration and communication challenges that occur within GSD teams. These relate to Inclusion Criteria, Reverse Items, Kanban Board, Policies, Avatars, and Backlog. Contribution: The paper contributes to knowledge by proposing two simple concept maps that detail the specific types of communication and collaboration challenges which can be alleviated by the aforementioned Kanban elements in GSD. Recommendations for Practitioners: This paper is relevant to GSD teams who are seeking ways to enhance their team collaboration and communication as these are the most important elements that contribute to GSD project success. It is recommended that relevant Kanban elements be used to that effect, depending on the challenges that they aim to alleviate. Future Research: Future research can investigate the same research questions (or similar ones) using a quantitative approach.

Why does site visit matter in global software development: A knowledge-based perspective

ContextFace-to-Face (F2F) interaction is a strong means to foster social relationships and effective knowledge sharing within a team. However, communication in Global Software Development (GSD) teams is usually restricted to computer-mediated conversation that is perceived to be less effective and interpersonal. Temporary collocation of dispersed members of a software development team is a well-known practice in GSD. Despite broad realization of the benefits of visits, there is lack of empirical evidence that explores how temporary F2F interactions are organized in practice and how they can impact knowledge sharing between sites. ObjectiveThis study aimed at empirically investigating activities that take place during temporary collocation of dispersed members and analyzing the outcomes of the visit for supporting and improving knowledge sharing. MethodWe report a longitudinal case study of a GSD team distributed between Denmark and Pakistan. We have explored a particular visit organized for a group of offshore team members visiting onshore site for two weeks. Our findings are based on a systematic and rigorous analysis of the calendar entries of the visitors during the studied visit, several observations of a selected set of the team members’ activities during the visit and 13 semi-structured interviews. ResultsLooking through the lens of knowledge-based theory of the firm, we have found that social and professional activities organized during the visit, facilitated knowledge sharing between team members from both sites. The findings are expected to contribute to building a common knowledge and understanding about the role and usefulness of the site visits for supporting and improving knowledge sharing in GSD teams by establishing and sustaining social and professional ties.

Effects of Cohesion-Based Feedback on the Collaborations in Global Software Development Teams

This paper describes a study that examines the effect of cohesion-based feedback on a team member’s behaviors in a global software development project. Chat messages and forum posts were collected from a software development project involving students living in the US and Mexico. Half of the teams

Integration of fuzzy DEMATEL and FMCDM approach for evaluating knowledge transfer effectiveness with reference to GSD project outcome

The offshore/on-site teams’ knowledge transfer effectiveness is one of the key predictors for evaluating the outcome of global software development (GSD) project. This study aims at proposing an assessment framework that can be used to evaluate the GSD teams’ (offshore/on-site) knowledge transfer effectiveness in the following criteria: knowledge, team, technology, and organization factors. For evaluating the teams’ knowledge transfer effectiveness in GSD projects, we have integrated the fuzzy decision making trial and evaluation laboratory (DEMATEL) and fuzzy multi-criteria decision making (FMCDM) approaches. Moreover, the proposed DEMATEL-FMCDM methodology is used to determine priority weights of each evaluation criterion and rate knowledge transfer effectiveness on the GSD project outcome from software service outsourcing perspective into two dimensions: product success, (schedule, cost improvement, etc.) and service quality (personal satisfaction, and successful collaboration). The proposed methodology is used for the prediction of a possible rating mechanism for determining the GSD project outcome through knowledge transfer criterions of GSD teams. It also facilitates the determination of knowledge transfer effectiveness of GSD teams’ towards the success of the GSD project outcome and initiates actions to improve the project outcome in GSD environment. This study demonstrates a survey research method that addresses 35 knowledge transfer factors assessed by 70 software professionals at Inowits software organization in India.

A conceptual framework to study the role of communication through social software for coordination in globally-distributed software teams

BackgroundIn Global Software Development (GSD) the lack of face-to-face communication is a major challenge and effective computer-mediated practices are necessary to mitigate the effect of physical distance. Communication through Social Software (SoSo) supports team coordination, helping to deal with geographical distance; however, in Software Engineering literature, there is a lack of suitable theoretical concepts to analyze and describe everyday practices of globally-distributed software development teams and to study the role of communication through SoSo. ObjectiveThe paper proposes a theoretical framework for analyzing how communicative and coordinative practices are constituted and maintained in globally-distributed teams. MethodThe framework is based on the concepts of communicative genres and coordination mechanisms; it is motivated and explicated through examples from two qualitative empirical cases. ResultsCoordination mechanisms and communicative genres mutually support each other. In particular, communication through SoSo supports team members in establishing, developing and maintaining social protocols within the distributed team. Software Engineering tools and methods provide templates for coordination mechanism that need to be adapted and adopted in order to support the project at hand. SoSo serves as a medium for the necessary metawork. The theoretical framework proposed is used to describe both the practices in an established industrial project and the establishing of practices in three student teams. The framework allows explaining the heterogeneity of practices observed. ConclusionsThis paper presents a conceptual framework to study the role of communication through SoSo for coordination in GSD. The usefulness of the framework is supported by empirical findings on the role of SoSo. The theoretical framework can be beneficial for future research that aims to analyze and describe not only the role of SoSo, but also how communicative and coordinative practices can be established and maintained in GSD teams.

Software Quality and Development Speed in Global Software Development Teams

The paper draws on information processing theory to propose that national diversity creates barriers to the integration of information among members of global software development teams, negatively impacting software quality and development speed. However, the effect of such relationships was expected to be contingent upon the amount of time that team members had worked together in the past (i.e., previous working ties). Hypotheses were tested in a field study involving 62 global software development teams distributed across Europe and Central and South America. Teams with high levels of previous working ties developed greater quality software at a faster pace. National diversity had a positive effect on software quality in teams with high levels of previous working ties, but a negative effect in teams with low levels of previous working ties. National diversity also had a negative impact on software development speed, but the effect was less pronounced among teams with high levels of previous working ties than on teams low in previous working ties.

A combined fuzzy DEMATEL and fuzzy TOPSIS approach for evaluating GSD project outcome factors

The theoretical basis for studying the phenomenon of Global Software Development (GSD) draws upon one of the key research streams, that is, the Organizational Behavior (OB) research. The focus of this study has led to two research problems: partnership quality and service climate aspects are addressed which have given an insight into the OB research on GSD teams. Moreover, this study classifies results from the partnership quality and service climate aspects into one integrated framework, which covers 18 attributes to explore the GSD outcome factors perceived by GSD teams in OB research phenomenon. To evaluate partnership quality and team service climate aspects with reference to the GSD project outcome, we have integrated the fuzzy Decision-Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory Model (DEMATEL) and the Technique for Order Performance by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) approach, which is more appropriate to find the significance of criteria. The empirical application of this hybrid approach for evaluating GSD project outcome factors has been tested in Indian software organizations. Consequently, the results of this study provide a vivid picture and facilitate the organization to reveal the importance of OB research on GSD teams.

The effect of governance on global software development: An empirical research in transactive memory systems

ContextThe way global software development (GSD) activities are managed impacts knowledge transactions between team members. The first is captured in governance decisions, and the latter in a transactive memory system (TMS), a shared cognitive system for encoding, storing and retrieving knowledge between members of a group. ObjectiveWe seek to identify how different governance decisions (such as business strategy, team configuration, task allocation) affect the structure of transactive memory systems as well as the processes developed within those systems. MethodWe use both a quantitative and a qualitative approach. We collect quantitative data through an online survey to identify transactive memory systems. We analyze transactive memory structures using social network analysis techniques and we build a latent variable model to measure transactive memory processes. We further support and triangulate our results by means of interviews, which also help us examine the GSD governance modes of the participating projects. We analyze governance modes, as set of decisions based on three aspects; business strategy, team structure and composition, and task allocation. ResultsOur results suggest that different governance decisions have a different impact on transactive memory systems. Offshore insourcing as a business strategy, for instance, creates tightly-connected clusters, which in turn leads to better developed transactive memory processes. We also find that within the composition and structure of GSD teams, there are boundary spanners (formal or informal) who have a better overview of the network’s activities and become central members within their network. An interesting mapping between task allocation and the composition of the network core suggests that the way tasks are allocated among distributed teams is an indicator of where expertise resides. ConclusionWe present an analytical method to examine GSD governance decisions and their effect on transactive memory systems. Our method can be used from both practitioners and researchers as a “cause and effect” tool for improving collaboration of global software teams.

Skills and abilities for working in a global software development team: a competence model

ABSTRACTNowadays, it is common to develop software development projects collaboratively among team members or organizations in different geographical locations. These teams, known as global software development (GSD) teams, allow organizations to save costs as well as have available highly qualified personnel. This kind of team is different from traditional teams, so it is necessary for team members to develop other essential competences to work efficiently in a global context. Unfortunately, there is no well‐defined competence model that allows organizations to assess personnel competences and establish the relevant training program that allows them to work efficiently in such teams. This work defines and implements, in four GSD teams, a competence model specifically designed to address challenges that people face when they work in a GSD team. This competence model has been defined considering tasks a GSD team have to carry out, bodies of knowledge, and existing competence models for the software engineering profiles and the authors' experience working in such teams. As a result of the implementation process, it was confirmed that the competence model is a key factor for human capital improvement. When personnel have these competences, team and individual efficiency and product quality increase, and delays in delivering products decrease. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.