Abstract
The management and coordination of globally distributed development poses many new challenges, including compensating for informal implicit communication, which is aggravated by heterogeneous social and engineering traditions between development sites. Although much research has gone into identifying challenges and working with practical solutions, such as tools for communication, little research has focused on comparing communication mechanisms in terms of their ability to provide large volumes of rich information in a timely manner. Data was collected through in-depth interviews with eleven practitioners and twenty-eight responses through a web-based questionnaire from three product lines at an international software development organization. This paper assesses the relative importance of ten commonly used communication mechanisms and practices across local and global development sites. The results clearly indicate that some communication mechanisms are more important than others in providing large volumes of rich information in a timely manner. The prevalence of architecture in providing rich information in large volumes for both local and global communication can be clearly observed.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Bass, L., Clements, P., Kazman, R.: Software Architecture in Practice. Addison-Wesley Professional (2003)
Berenbach, B.: An Introduction to Global Product Line Requirements Engineering. In: Proc. of the Second Int. Conference on Global Software Engineering, pp. 300–301 (August 2007)
Bosch, J., Bosch-Sijtsema, P.: From integration to composition: On the impact of software product lines, global development and ecosystems. Journal of Systems and Software 831, 67–76 (2010)
Carmel, E., Agarwal, R.: Tactical approaches for alleviating distance in global software development. IEEE Software 18, 22–29 (2001)
Conchuir, E.O., Ågerfalk, P.J., Olsson, H.H., Fitzgerld, B.: Global Software Development: Where are the benefits? Communications of the ACM 52, 127–131 (2009)
Deridder D.: A concept-oriented approach to support software maintenance and reuse activities. In: Workshop on Knowledge-Based Object-Oriented Software Engineering (2002)
Falbo, R.A., Menezes, C.S., Rocha, A.R.: Using ontologies to improve knowledge integration in software engineering environments. In: Proc. of the 4th Conference on Information Systems Analysis and Synthesis (1998)
Fricker, S., Gorschek, T., Glinz, M.: Goal-Oriented Requirements Communication in New Product Development. In: Proc., Second Int. Workshop on Software Product Management (2008)
Griffin, A., Hauser, J.: Integrating R&D and Marketing: A Review and Analysis of the Literature. Journal of Product Innovation Management 13, 191–215 (1996)
Herbsleb, J.D., Grinter, R.E.: Architectures, Coordination, and Distance: Conway’s Law and Beyond. IEEE Software 16, 63–70 (1999)
Herbsleb, J.D., Mockus, A.: An Empirical Study of Speed and Communication in Globally Distributed Software Development. IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering 29, 481–494 (2003)
Herbsleb, J.D., Mockus, A., Finholt, T.A., Grinter, R.E.: An Empirical Study of Global Software Development: Distance and Speed. In: Proc. 3rd International Conference on Software Engineering. Inst. of Elec. and Elec. Eng, pp. 81–90 (May 2001)
Kraut, R.E., Streeter, L.A.: Coordination in software development. Communications of the ACM 38, 69–81 (1995)
McDonough, E.F., Kahn, K.B., Griffin, A.: Managing Communication in Global Product Development Teams. IEEE Transaction on Engineering Management 46, 375–386 (1999)
Niinimäki, T., Lassenius, C.: Experiences of Instant Messaging in Global Software Development Projects: A Multiple Case Study. In: Proc. IEEE International Conference on Global Software Engineering, pp. 55–64. IEEE (August 2008)
Ovaska, P., Rossi, M., Marttiin, P.: Architecture as a coordination tool in multi-site software development. Software Process: Improvement and Practice 8, 233–247 (2004)
Paech, B., Dörr, J., Koehler, M.: Improving Requirements Engineering Communication in Multiproject Environments. IEEE Software 22, 40–47 (2005)
Perry, D.E., Staudenmayer, N.A., Votta, L.G.: People, organizations and process improvement. IEEE Software 11, 36–45 (1994)
Regnell, B., Brinkkemper, S.: Market-Driven Requirements Engineering for Software Products. In: Aurum, A., Wohlin, C. (eds.) Engineering and Managing Software Requirements, pp. 287–308. Springer (2005)
Robson, C.: Real World Research. Blackwell, Oxford (2002)
Sharma D.: Blueprint of Success: Creating Software Product Value through Product Line Engineering, Honours Thesis, School of Information Systems, Technology and Management, University of New South Wales, Australia (2007)
Sharma, D., Aurum, A., Paech, B.: Business Value through Product Line Engineering – An Empirical Study. In: Proc., 34th Euromicro Conference on Software Engineering and Advanced Applications, pp. 167–174 (September 2008)
Silverman, D.: Interpreting Qualitative Data. Sage Publication, London (2001)
Šmite, D.: Global Software Development Projects in One of the Biggest Companies in Latvia: Is Geographical Distribution a Problem? Software Process Improvement and Practice 11, 61–76 (2006)
Šmite, D., Wohlin, C., Gorschek, T., Feldt, R.: Empirical Evidence in Global Software Engineering: A Systematic Review. Empirical Software Engineering 15, 91–118 (2010)
Ullah, M.I., Ruhe, G.: Towards Comprehensive Release Planning for Software Product Lines. In: Proc. of the 1st International Workshop on Software Product Management (ISPM 2006). Inst. of Elec. and Eng. Computer Society, pp. 51–55 (September 2006)
Van De Weerd, I., Brinkkemper, S., Nieuwenhuis, R., Versendaal J., Bijlsma, L.: A Reference Framework for Software Product Management, Technical Report UU-CS-2006-014, Department of Information and Computing Sciences Utrecht University (2006)
Wohlin, C., Runeson, P., Höst, M., Ohlson, C., Regnell, B., Wesslén, A.: Experimentation in Software Engineering: An Introduction. Kluwer Academic, Boston (2000)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2012 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Berntsson Svensson, R., Aurum, A., Paech, B., Gorschek, T., Sharma, D. (2012). Software Architecture as a Means of Communication in a Globally Distributed Software Development Context. In: Dieste, O., Jedlitschka, A., Juristo, N. (eds) Product-Focused Software Process Improvement. PROFES 2012. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 7343. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-31063-8_14
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-31063-8_14
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-642-31062-1
Online ISBN: 978-3-642-31063-8
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)