Darja mite

Risk Identification and Risk Mitigation Instruments for Global Software Development: Systematic Review and Survey Results

In this research we conducted a systematic reviewon Global Software Development (GSD) literature andperformed a survey to gather challenges associated with GSDprojects as well as their mitigation strategies. We reviewedstudies with empirical evidence in GSD. In total there are 86papers included as the primary studies. From the systematicreview we collected 48 challenges and 42 mitigation strategies.These challenges and strategies were also identified by our survey respondents. In addition, 4 additional mitigation strategies were uncovered from the survey. The collected challenges and mitigation strategies are later compiled into checklists which can be employed as risk identification and risk mitigation instruments.

Software Product Transfers: Lessons Learned from a Case Study

Although global software work nowadays is not a phenomenon, research and practice is still addressing the complexities associated with the new forms of work enabled through globalization. ‘Go global’ strategies usually prescribe two alternative approaches: distribution of software development activities across several locations, or re-location of work to another site. This research paper focuses on the latter approach that is called software product transfers and discusses findings from an empirical case study conducted in Ericsson. The observations indicate that transferring software work from one site to another site of the same company is a challenging endeavor. Furthermore, practices used in co-located projects do not necessarily lead to a desired outcome. The paper provides an overview of the challenges and highlights practical advice for handling software product transfers.

Software teams and their knowledge networks in large-scale software development

Empirical findings from ten software teams from two large-scale software development projects in Ericsson and ABB demonstrated that teams receive and share their knowledge with a large number of contacts, including other team members, experts, administrative roles, and support roles.Along with human and organizational capital, social capital and networking are also necessary for participation in large-scale software development, both for novice teams and for mature teams working on complex, unfamiliar, or interdependent tasks.Social capital has the potential to compensate for gaps in human capital (i.e., an individuals knowledge and skills).The team network size and networking behavior depend on the following factors: company experience, employee turnover, team culture, need for networking, and organizational support.Along with investments in training programs, software companies should also cultivate a networking culture to strengthen their social capital and achieve better performance. ContextLarge software development projects involve multiple interconnected teams, often spread around the world, developing complex products for a growing number of customers and users. Succeeding with large-scale software development requires access to an enormous amount of knowledge and skills. Since neither individuals nor teams can possibly possess all the needed expertise, the resource availability in a teams knowledge network, also known as social capital, and effective knowledge coordination become paramount. ObjectiveIn this paper, we explore the role of social capital in terms of knowledge networks and networking behavior in large-scale software development projects. MethodWe conducted a multi-case study in two organizations, Ericsson and ABB, with software development teams as embedded units of analysis. We organized focus groups with ten software teams and surveyed 61 members from these teams to characterize and visualize the teams knowledge networks. To complement the team perspective, we conducted individual interviews with representatives of supporting and coordination roles. Based on survey data, data obtained from focus groups, and individual interviews, we compared the different network characteristics and mechanisms that support knowledge networks. We used social network analysis to construct the team networks, thematic coding to identify network characteristics and context factors, and tabular summaries to identify the trends. ResultsOur findings indicate that social capital and networking are essential for both novice and mature teams when solving complex, unfamiliar, or interdependent tasks. Network size and networking behavior depend on company experience, employee turnover, team culture, need for networking, and organizational support. A number of mechanisms can support the development of knowledge networks and social capital, for example, introduction of formal technical experts, facilitation of communities of practice and adequate communication infrastructure. ConclusionsOur study emphasizes the importance of social capital and knowledge networks. Therefore, we suggest that, along with investments into training programs, software companies should also cultivate a networking culture to strengthen their social capital, a known driver of better performance.

Visualization of Defect Inflow and Resolution Cycles: Before, During and After Transfer

The link between maintenance and product quality, as well as the high cost of software maintenance, highlights the importance of efficient maintenance processes. Sustaining maintenance work efficiency in a global software development setting that involves a transfer is a challenging endeavor. Studies report on the negative effect of transfers on efficiency. However, empirical evidence on the magnitude of the change in efficiency is scarce. In this study we used a lean indicator to visualize variances in defect resolution cycles for two large products during evolution, before, during and after a transfer. Focus group meetings were also held for each product. Study results show that during and immediately after the transfer the defect inflow is higher, bottlenecks are more visible, and defect resolution cycles are longer, as compared to before the transfer. Furthermore we highlight the factors that influenced the change in defect resolution cycles before, during, and after the transfer.

Knowledge Management in Globally Distributed Agile Projects -- Lesson Learned

Knowledge management (KM) is essential for success in any software project, but especially in global software development where team members are separated by time and space. Software organizations are managing knowledge in various ways to increase transparency and improve software team performance. One way to classify these strategies is proposed by Earl who defined seven knowledge management schools. The objective of this research is to study knowledge creation and sharing practices in a number of distributed agile projects, map these practices to the knowledge management strategies and determine which strategies are most common, which are applied only locally and which are applied globally. This is done by conducting a series of semi-structured qualitative interviews over a period of time span during May, 2012-June, 2013. Our results suggest that knowledge sharing across remote locations in distributed agile projects heavily relies on knowledge codification, i.e. Technocratic KM strategies, even when the same knowledge is shared tacitly within the same location, i.e. Through behavioral KM strategies.

An Evolutionary Perspective on Socio-Technical Congruence: The Rubber Band Effect

Conways law assumes a strong association between the systems architecture and the organizations communication structure that designs it. In the light of contemporary software development, when many companies rely on geographically distributed teams, which often turn out to be temporarily composed and thus having an often-changing communication structure, the importance of Conways law and its inspired work grows. In this paper, we examine empirical research related to Conways law and its application for cross-site coordination. Based on the results obtained we conjecture that changes in the communication structure alone sooner or later trigger changes in the design structure of the software products to return the socio-technical system into the state of congruence. This is further used to formulate a concept of a rubber band effect and propose a replication study that goes beyond the original idea of Conways law by investigating the evolution of socio-technical congruence over time.

Measuring Awareness in Cross-Team Collaborations -- Distance Matters

Developing and maintaining team awareness within and across teams working in the same project helps team members in aligning their activities and facilitates implicit coordination. This requires both task and presence awareness. In this paper, we share our findings from a survey in which we measured the level of team awareness in cross-team collaborations with varying degree of separation. To measure the levels of awareness we asked questions like who is who, who knows what, who is on a vacation, who depends on whom and alike. Results from surveying 17 pairs of teams from 15 organizations indicate that level of awareness in cross-team collaborations is generally lower than that within the teams. We also found that task and presence awareness levels are independent and can vary. In addition to distance, we identified a few other factors with potential positive and negative influence on team awareness.

Spatial Knowledge Creation and Sharing Activities in a Distributed Agile Project

Knowledge management (KM) is key to the success of any software organization. KM in software development has been the center of attention for researchers due to its potential to improve productivity. However, the knowledge is not only stored in repositories but is also shared in the office space. Agile software development teams use the benefits of shared space to foster knowledge creation. But it is difficult to create and share this type of knowledge, when team members are distributed. This participatory single-case study indicates that, distributed team members rely heavily on knowledge codification and application of tools for knowledge sharing. We have found that, the studied project did not use any specific software or hardware that would enable spatial knowledge creation and sharing. Therefore parts of the knowledge items not codified were destined to be unavailable for remote team members.

What Happens, When Software Product Development Companies Go Global?

Globalization has significantly changed the way the market operates today. In particular, it motivated many software companies expand through acquisitions and utilize skillful resources regardless of their location around the globe. Global software engineering endeavors have been widely explored in the research literature for the past decade and associated with many challenges caused by geographic, temporal and cultural distances. While software development as such is quite a challenging task, involvement of dispersed and diverse software teams created a perceived crisis with respect to, so called, soft issues that have not been targeted in the past. The effect of distribution versus co-location is still under investigation, and the most commonly referred challenges are related to communication, coordination and control [1]. Thus the focus of research to a large extent has shifted from software product as the center, to people developing software.

Expectations and Achievements: A Longitudinal Study on an Offshoring Strategy

Offshore software development has gained momentum and most of software companies today have implemented offshore strategies of some sort. Many of these strategies are enforced by corporate top management and driven by assumptions that lower development wages guarantee cheaper and better software development. In practice, offshore software development is associated with many risks, and achievement of the expected benefits is not as straightforward as the rumor has it. In this paper we explore an implementation of an offshore strategy in a Swedish software company that opened its offshore branch in Russia. Based on extensive documentation analysis we create an overview of the initially expected benefits and obstacles that prevailed among onshore product and development unit managers. Years after implementation of the offshore in sourcing strategy we asked these managers about the achievement of their expectations. We observed that the company documented various expected benefits when implementing an off shoring strategy and also concerns that some of these benefits might not be achieved. Seven years after its implementation, the off shoring strategy was overall considered working, however the expected benefits were not fully achieved. More importantly, several gaps were identified, that suggest that the enforced strategy has resulted in a stable but not beneficial collaboration from the onshore perspective.