An empirical study of communication media and issues in globally distributed software development

It is known that distributed software development is risker and more challenging than collocated software development. Previous research has suggested that there are several factors that cause delay in distributed development including cultural differences, lacking common ground, communication and coordination overhead [4]. We use data collection forms and interviews to gather data from a course on distributed software development (DSD), collaborated among four universities in four widely-separated countries to do an empirical case study. We try to evaluate communication media effects on DSD and verify hypotheses and issues about communication among distributed sites. We found that selecting correct communication media is helpful in solving communication issues and decreasing development delay. We also evaluate the effects of common ground, human resources, team culture, module structure distribution and time zone on project time and effort. Further, we found several communication issues in this DSD case study and present a strategy to improve DSD and avoid these communication issues.