Systematic literature reviews in global software development: A tertiary study

Global software development (GSD) projects are often largescale, tend to be complex, and have an increased risk of failure. An understanding of common GSD risks can help project managers control the risks and thus increase the likelihood of project success. We extend an earlier tertiary GSD systematic literature review (SLR) to extract data from the SLR studies identified to discover, 1) what are the most common risks described in the SLRs, 2) what empirical evidence is there for the risks, and 3) who is responsible for controlling the risk. The 123 risks we found were categorized under four major themes 1) GSD outsourcing rationale, 2) software development, 3) human resources, and 4) project management. Most risks (32%) were related to project management. The risk with the most empirical support was a high level strategy risk. Mapping the research rather than providing industry guidance was the focus of the majority of the GSD SLRs.