Evolving Software Processes

12Challenges to Project Management in Distributed Software Development: A Systematic Literature Review

SHER BADSHAH¹

¹ Faculty of Computer Science, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Canada

Email: [e-mail]

Abstract

In recent decades, the development of organization software has been expanding across different continents due to a shortage of human resources and to save cost. The development of a software product among different geographically dispersed teams is a very challenging task. Software project management is one of the important challenges between distributed teams. This study aims to investigate project management (PM) challenges in global software development and provide solutions to overcome these challenges. We investigated these issues through a systematic literature review. The most common barriers that we have found are cultural differences, lack of communication and coordination, different time zones, language issues, different organization style and processes, and knowledge management between virtual teams. Our goal is to develop a PM framework for global software development.

Keywords: Global software development, distributed software development, global software engineering, project management, challenges

12.1 Introduction

The term/phenomena of distributed software development or global software development (GSD) is a common practice in software development organizations. GSD is the process in which an organization onshore or nearshore outsources ...