Empirical Analysis of a Distributed Software Development Project
نویسندگان
چکیده
In spite of the abundant research that promotes different methods for software development, and the current method war amidst agile and disciplined methods, little research is done to actually figure out whether real projects, carried out in industrial environments, benefit more from either approach. This paper analyses a real project team’s opinions and feelings about project management techniques, software development methods and cultural difference in a multi-site project where traveling and communication are made difficult by restrictions and low-quality infrastructure. The different sites also worked in different time zones and with different working week patterns. The project team members almost unanimously indicated that the presence of a local team leader with authority and flexibility to cover a role that is not exactly as assigned in the beginning, is key factor for the success of this sort of projects. While there was no consensus on whether the project was agile or disciplined, evidence seems to hint towards a more disciplined approach, probably as a compensation for the higher degree of uncertainty that derives from the distributed setup. While the findings of the case study cannot be extended to other organizations without caution, we do infer a number of conclusions on cultural differences, project management tools and techniques.
منابع مشابه
The Impact of the Structure of Communication Patterns in Global Software Development: An Empirical Analysis of a Project Using Agile Methods
Successful software development depends on effective communication within and across teams. Structural properties of communication have long been recognized as important drivers of project performance. However, the empirical results are mixed in terms of which particular communication structures are effective in the context of geographically distributed projects. In this paper, we examined the ...
متن کاملFine-grained Analysis of Global Software Development Process
This paper proposes a method for micro process analysis of ongoing distributed software development. Micro process analysis firstly identifies process instances by matching logs of software development tools with pre-defined micro (fine-grained) process models. Micro process metrics can be measured from identified process instances. In distributed or multisited software development environment,...
متن کاملEmpirical Studies on Distributed Development: Methods and Results
A significant corpus of empirical research has been conducted on distributed development. A number of them are taken a look at in this paper, investigating their methods, issues and results. Then, the factors which influence the communication, the development process, the software quality and other properties of distributed software development are discussed. While the research is very diverse ...
متن کاملA Research Framework for Empirical Software Engineering Collaboration and Its Application in a Software Development Project
To demonstrate and verify empirical software engineering methods, a new research framework was developed in response to government policy in Japan. This framework was adapted to a government software development project, which is currently in detailed design. This application demonstrates use of the framework in a real software development project. This paper describes the background and curren...
متن کاملEASE Project: Introducing Empirical Software Engineering into Japanese Industry
In Japanese software development industry, there are few activities to objectively evaluate effectiveness or degree of improvement. The author believes empirical software engineering can solve this problem. This paper introduces an ongoing national project named EASE (Empirical Approach to Software Engineering). EASE project aims to introduce empirical approach into Japanese industry. This pape...
متن کامل