Global Software Development Research Articles

Cadxela: An educational tool for supporting the global software engineering education at undergraduate level

AbstractThe Global Software Development (GSD) strategy has introduced many benefits into the modern software industry, but it has also created many risks that can negatively affect the quality of the final product. Moreover, this approach is still in constant evolution and, therefore, diverse issues and challenges related to geographical, temporal, and sociocultural distances are also present. Therefore, many universities around the world are increasing their efforts in creating programs to prepare more skilled graduates to work in globally distributed environments. However, providing GSD courses among universities distributed in different locations is not so profitable and normally involves a high number of collaborations among various teachers and students that traditional teaching approaches cannot support. In this study, the Cadxela tool is presented to enable undergraduate students to acquire practical experience in GSD and improve their communication and teamwork skills. An empirical evaluation was conducted on Cadxela involving students and teachers from five universities in Mexico, Spain, Chile, Cuba, and Peru. The participants developed a total of 15 projects to experience different problems related to geographical, temporal, and sociocultural distances. The obtained results from pre and post‐evaluations showed that Cadxela can contribute to facilitating the development of practical projects on GSD undergraduate courses, while students develop their knowledge, social skills associated with this topic as well as teamwork and communication skills. Finally, the data collected on the teachers' perceptions suggested that Cadxela can also be a useful tool for introducing the GSD approach at the undergraduate level.

Scrum Team Competencies in Information Technology Professionals in the Global Software Development Environment

The Product Owner and Scrum Master are members of the Scrum Team, which play an essential role in Global Software Development. They must have some competencies that can overcome challenges in the global environment. This study aims to develop the competencies of these two roles and explore issues of global competencies. Researchers conducted a literature study to produce a list of competencies and in-depth interviews to explore the issues. Data processing uses content analysis and descriptive statistics. The author compiled questionnaires and generated three issues, then held a Focus Group Discussion for validation. Without reducing the nature of scrum, the consensus of experts had approved 31 competencies for the product owner while 34 for the scrum master. This research enriches scrum.org and has a global impact on improving Scrum and Global Software Development human capital and IT professionals.

Unveiling process insights from refactoring practices

Context: Software comprehension and maintenance activities, such as refactoring, are said to be negatively impacted by software complexity. The methods used to measure software product and processes complexity have been thoroughly debated in the literature. However, the discernment about the possible links between these two dimensions, particularly on the benefits of using the process perspective, has a long journey ahead.Objective: To improve the understanding of the liaison of developers’ activities and software complexity within a refactoring task, namely by evaluating if process metrics gathered from the IDE, using process mining methods and tools, are suitable to accurately classify different refactoring practices and the resulting software complexity.Method: We mined source code metrics from a software product after a quality improvement task was given in parallel to (117) software developers, organized in (71) teams. Simultaneously, we collected events from their IDE work sessions (320) and used process mining to model their processes and extract the correspondent metrics.Results: Most teams using a plugin for refactoring (JDeodorant) reduced software complexity more effectively and with simpler processes than the ones that performed refactoring using only Eclipse native features. We were able to find moderate correlations (≈43%) between software cyclomatic complexity and process cyclomatic complexity. Using only process driven metrics, we computed ≈30,000 models aiming to predict the type of refactoring method (automatic or manual) teams had used and the expected level of software cyclomatic complexity reduction after their work sessions. The best models found for the refactoring method and cyclomatic complexity level predictions, had an accuracy of 92.95% and 94.36%, respectively.Conclusions: We have demonstrated the feasibility of an approach that allows building cross-cutting analytical models in software projects, such as the one we used for detecting manual or automatic refactoring practices. Events from the development tools and support activities can be collected, transformed, aggregated, and analyzed with fewer privacy concerns or technical constraints than source code-driven metrics. This makes our approach agnostic to programming languages, geographic location, or development practices, making it suitable for challenging contexts, such as, in modern global software development where many projects adopt agile methodologies, and low/no code platforms. Initial findings are encouraging, and lead us to suggest practitioners may use our method in other development tasks, such as, defect analysis and unit or integration tests.

Scrum Team Competence Based on Knowledge, Skills, Attitude in Global Software Development

Global Software Development (GSD) and Scrum are two pivotal tools in software engineering, which meet the needs of global economics in dealing with various disruptions, such as physical distancing due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This research focuses on Scrum with its three roles: Product Owner, Scrum Master and Development Team. They require a distinct set of competencies, including Knowledge, Skills, and Attitude (KSA). Therefore, this study aims to develop a list of Scrum team competence based on KSA in GSD. The authors conducted a comprehensive literature review to create the list. Then, it was followed by in-depth interviews with nine experts involving practitioners and academics having experience in Scrum, GSD, and educational psychology for validation. This study proposes a compilation of KSA-based competencies for all roles of the Scrum team. Each competency has been grouped and given a level based on Bloom’s taxonomy. The research findings can be the basis for successful competency development for the Scrum team. © 2021, SRAC - Romanian Society for Quality. All rights reserved.

Proposing total quality management as a buffer between global software development challenges and project success

PurposeThis study aims to empirically investigate the relationship between different global software development (GSD) challenges (management, process, social, technical and environmental challenges) and software project success. Further, the study examines the moderating role of total quality management (TQM) between the relationship of GSD challenges and success of software projects.Design/methodology/approachUsing two field studies, the authors collected data form software developers working in globally distributed teams. In study 1 (n = 194), relationship of different dimensions of GSD challenges (management, process, social, technical and environmental challenges) and project success was examined. In study 2 (n = 138), moderating role of TQM was examined on the relationship of GSD challenges and project success.FindingsThe results of study 1 indicate that there is a negative relationship between all dimensions of GSD challenges and project success. Findings of study 2 confirmed that TQM practices moderate the negative relationship between GSD challenges and project success.Practical implicationsThe findings of the study provide guidelines to the project managers of software industry to mitigate GSD challenges using TQM practices.Originality/valueStudy adds in the literature of TQM, GSD challenges and project success by (1) empirically investigating the relationship between different GSD challenges and software project success and (2) by examining the moderating role of TQM practices on relationship of GSD challenges and project success in global software development industry.

Risks and risk mitigation in global software development: An update

AbstractContext: Interest in global software development (GSD) has led to the publication of numerous studies. Over time, these studies should be updated to verify if their findings and conclusions remain valid.Objective: To update a tertiary study, published in 2014, focused on investigating risks and risk mitigation advice in the context of GSD.Method: We conducted a systematic literature study based on forward snowballing, out of which we identified and selected 25 unique studies.Results: We extracted: (a) 118 risks (75 of which already identified in the original work), and (b) 167 mitigation advice (44 of which were identified in the original work). Out of 43 new risks identified, just 10 are specific to GSD settings; the others are risks of the software process described in the context of GSD. The evidence supporting these risks and mitigation were extracted from 619 and 389 primary sources, respectively. Given the amount of evidence found, we have reported only those with higher empirical support. The raw data is available online as complementary material.Conclusions: Interest in GSD, its potential risks, and mitigation strategies, remains high. This update has allowed increasing the level of empirical support provided by the findings of the original work.

Multi-Criteria Decision Making Model for Application Maintenance Offshoring Using Analytic Hierarchy Process

The phenomenon of Global Software Development (GSD) has attracted the interest of businesses all over the world. It brings together partners from various national and corporate cultures to develop applications with numerous advantages, including access to a vast labor pool, cost savings, and round the clock growth. GSD, on the other hand, is technologically and organizationally diverse and poses a number of obstacles for the development team, such as geographical distance, cultural differences, communication and language barriers. Global services are provided by selecting one of the suitable global delivery options, i.e., the onshore model, nearshore model or offshore model. Experts typically choose one of the models based on the nature of the project and the needs of the customer. However, the vendors and clients lack an adequate decision support system that can assist them in making suitable sourcing decisions. Therefore, the current study presents a Multi-Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) model for offshore outsourcing decisions of application maintenance. To achieve our target, two systematic literature reviews were conducted that explored a list of 15 influencing factors. The identified factors were further evaluated in the outsourcing industry by performing an empirical study that resulted in a list of 10 critical success factors. We propose a sourcing framework based on the critical success factors that can assist decision makers in adopting a suitable sourcing strategy for the offshore outsourcing of application maintenance. In order to further enhance the decision-making process, the MCDM model is developed based on the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP). The MCDM model is evaluated with three case studies in highly reputable international companies, including IBM Stockholm, Sweden, Vattenfall AB, Stockholm, Sweden and a London based company in the United Kingdom. The outcomes of these case studies are further reviewed and validated by the outsourcing specialists in other firms. The proposed model is used as a decision support system that determines the ranking of sourcing alternatives and suggests the most suitable option for application maintenance offshoring.

Developing a framework to overcome communication challenges in agile distributed teams – Case study of a Mauritian-based IT service delivery centre

Nowadays, many organisations have combined Agile Methodology with global software development due to the numerous benefits they offer such as faster time to market, cheaper and skilled labour, 24-hour development and better project control. However, agile methods prefer team members to be co-located to promote effective communication between team members and this lack of face-to-face communication in a distributed setting results in various communication challenges due to distance, time and cultural differences. This research proposes a framework to overcome communication challenges such as language barriers, time-zone differences and trust issues. A mixed-method research choice combining both qualitative and quantitative design was opted for this research where for the initial stage of the study, a systematic literature review was performed. The analysis of the survey data collected demonstrated that the majority of respondents have rated the framework components as effective, hence making the latter viable for adoption by distributed agile projects.

Translation of Activities in a Global Virtual Teams Software Development

. This study explores Global Virtual Software Teams’ development practices and try to demystify some of the misconceptions about global software development practices based on findings from the global virtual software teams’ experiment that was carried out at DePaul University from 2011 – 2018. The moments of translation from the perspective of actor-network theory (ANT) was employed in the data analysis, to examine how development approach was selected by the global virtual teams. One of the key findings from our research is that the success of a global software development project does not have a strong dependency on the development approach. While we agree that it is one of the key influencing factors, there are other equally strong factors for global virtual software team’s success.

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.

Requirements Engineering: An Industrial Survey in the Gulf Cooperation Council Countries

Requirements engineering (RE), the process of defining the requirements of a system, is critical to the successful implementation of software projects. Although many studies have been globally conducted on the different facets of RE in software engineering, studies explicitly focusing on the countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) have been scarce. GCC-specific RE research studies are needed because of the unique cultural characteristics and common work ethics in GCC countries. Besides, the investigation of the state of RE practices in the countries of the GCC is crucial as the globalization of software development becomes imminent. This study compares the state of RE practices within the six countries of the GCC, namely, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, and Oman, using six RE factors. To understand commonalities and differences in the RE practices and methods, 163 software practitioners in GCC countries are surveyed in this study. The results show that the RE practices are relatively similar among the six countries, with subtle differences. Initiating software-related projects with unclear requirements and undefined project scopes are the two major limitations of the RE practices among the survey participants. The results of this study contribute to providing project managers and system analysts, who are working globally and within the GCC countries, with valuable decision-making tools to help them consider the identified RE techniques, methods, and challenges and their related risks early in their software development projects

Prioritization of global software requirements' engineering barriers: An analytical hierarchy process

Software industry is adopting global software development (GSD) due to its potential to produce quality products at a lower cost. However, the GSD firms face many challenges that make development activities more complicated, especially related to the requirements engineering (RE) process. The objectives of this article are to investigate and prioritize the barriers faced by the GSD organizations during the RE process. First, we identified 17 barriers related to the RE process in the GSD projects. Next, the identified barriers were further validated with real-world GSD practitioners using a questionnaire survey. Finally, we applied the analytical hierarchy process to prioritize the investigated barriers with respect to their significance for the RE process in the GSD domain. The results show that coordination is the most significant barrier category for the RE process in GSD projects. Lack of standard and procedure for RE in GSD, lack of synchronized communication infrastructure, and lack of mutual understanding between the overseas RE teams are also high-ranked barriers for the RE process in GSD. The authors believe that the findings of this study will assist practitioners and researchers in developing effective strategies and plans for the successful implementation of the RE process in the GSD context.

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.

Exploring the Aspects of Rework in Global Software Development

Exploring the Aspects of Rework in Global Software Development

Virtual Teams in Times of Pandemic: Factors That Influence Performance.

In the digital age, the global software development sector has been a forerunner in implementing new ways and configurations for remote teamwork using information and communication technologies on a widespread basis. Crises and technological advances have influenced each other to bring about changes in the ways of working. In the 70’s of the last century, in the middle of the so-called oil crisis, the concept of teleworking was defined using remote computer equipment to access office equipment and thus avoid moving around using traditional vehicles. Then from the 90s, with the advent of communications and the widespread use of the Internet, the first virtual work teams were implemented in software development companies that already had some of the important characteristics needed to work in this way, such as, cultural diversity, characterized tasks, geographical distribution of members, communication, interdependence of tasks, leadership, cohesion, empowerment, confidence, virtuality. This manuscript groups the main factors into different models proposed by the literature and also analyzes the results of a study conducted in the midst of the Covid-19 crisis on 317 software development teams that had to work in virtual teams (VT). The results of the quantitative methodology with structural equation modeling based on variance using the partial least squares route method are analyzed. The results of the research focus on some determinants that can directly affect the performance of the virtual team. A first determinant is communication in relation to the tasks. The second is trust in relation to leadership, empowerment and cohesion. The results of virtual teams provide information that can serve as a basis for future research lines for the implementation of virtual work strategies in post-pandemic work.

Addressing Communication, Coordnation and Cultural Issues in Global Software Development Projects

The field of Global Software Development has been an active area of research for the last two decades due to its enormous benefits such as lower labor cost, faster development and easy access to the skilled labor pool. Apart from these benefits, it faces some challenges like communication, coordination, trust and configuration management etc. These challenges arise primarily due to physical, cultural and time zone differences. The empirical studies highlight that the existing Global Software Development solutions do not fully meet the user needs as there are still several gaps in these solutions. Therefore, to fulfill these gaps, there is a need to develop novel frameworks that address outstanding issues. In this paper, we have attempted to address the aforesaid GSD challenges. The practitioners can benefit from our proposed framework during the execution of GSD projects. The proposed framework mainly focuses on the root causes of the two principal challenges namely the communication and cultural differences. We believe that if the team members of a software project can communicate effectively and show considerations for others by imparting due reverence to the cultural norms, then the other residual issues can easily be reduced and minimized.

Risk Prediction with Regression in Global Software Development using Machine Learning Approach: A Comparison of Linear and Decision Tree Regression

Software development through teams at different geographical locations is a trend of modern era, which is not only producing good results without costing lot of money, but also productive in relation to its cost with low risk and high return. This shift of perception of working in a group rather than alone is getting stronger day by day and has become an important planning tool and part of their business strategy. Due to this phenomenal shift the development processes have become complex and chances of risks have been increased. The utilization of Machine learning to manage risk is helpful when taking care of and evaluating data. In this research regression approaches like Linear Regression and Tree Regression have been implemented to predict the responses of risks involved in global software development. Comparative analysis has also been performed between these two algorithms to determine the highest accuracy algorithms. The results indicate that Fine tree regression, which is one of techniques of decision tree regression, gave better results in terms of goodness of fit measures as compared to linear regression model fitted to examine the relationship of cost, time and resource related risk with the overall risk of global software development projects.

Data Consolidation in Global Software Development Projects: A Grounded Theory

Effective coordination is a crucial aspect of successful Global Software Development (GSD) projects. Limited studies have examined coordination strategies and their related indicators. Therefore, this study focuses on assessing the coordination processes that require specific strategies and related indicators that can contribute to effective coordination. Thus, the main aim of this research is to consolidate the coordination strategies and the related indicators that were extracted from two different sources namely, Systematic Review and Semi-structured interview. Grounded Theory was used for the consolidation of these two sources. The results of this study are a set of coordination strategies and related indicators that will be used to formulate the evaluation to assess the effectiveness of the coordination processes in GSD projects.

GLOBAL SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT: A REVIEW OF ITS PRACTICES

Global Software Development (GSD) is multi-site software development with software teams scattered across different places around the world. To gain the benefits of the lower cost of software development and access to international talents, many organizations are using GSD. However, earlier studies reported that achieving these benefits can be difficult and GSD involves risks. This paper presents a systematic review of GSD and aim to provide the findings about the current practices, benefits, associated risks, and difficulties associated with it.The review was conducted in accordance with the systematic review procedures and processes defined by Kitchenham. By following these guidelines, six digital libraries to gather information on the prevalent trends and practices in GSD were searched. The outcomes presented in this study are based on 204 studies, published in peer-reviewed conferences and journals. Our findings will enable readers to understand the current practices, benefits, risks and difficulties associated with GSD. As a result, they can form realistic expectations before making a decision to engage in GSD or not, and formulate better pre-contract and post-contract planning in order to increase the chances of project success. A merit of this paper as compared to previous survey papers on GSD is that it reports the issues related to cultural diversity, requirements engineering and software architecture.

Agile trends in Chinese global software development industry: Fuzzy AHP based conceptual mapping

Global Software Development (GSD) has gained great attention during the past decade or so, and it is also being adopted by most of the software development organizations. The GSD approach is practiced by the software development organizations in China and a wide range of firms have established its operations in various Chinese cities. However, GSD practices becomes more challenging for the projects based on the agile concepts. The aim of this study is to develop a taxonomy of the factors that could positively impact the scaling process of agile methods in the Chinese GSD industry. The factors are identified by exploring the available literature and conducting industrial study with the Chinese agile and GSD practitioners. The finally reported factors are categorized, prioritized and developed their taxonomy using the multi-criterion decision making (MCDM) Fuzzy AHP approach. The given taxonomy is significant and progressive for GSD industry to assess and improve the scaling process of agile methods.