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Communication patterns in geographically distributed software development and engineers' contributions to the development effort

Published: 13 May 2008 Publication History

Abstract

This study seeks to shed light on how communication patterns in geographically distributed software development (GDSD) projects evolve over time and how they relate to developers' contributions to the development effort. Data from two GDSD projects from two distinct companies were collected. The analysis showed that the definition of formal roles had an important impact on patterns of communication across development locations. In one project a group of developers emerged over time as the liaisons between geographical locations. In addition to handling the communication and coordination load across locations, those same engineers contributed the most to the development effort. On the other hand, in the second project, communication across site was formalized and the developers involved in the cross site communication and coordination activities were not as productive.

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cover image ACM Conferences
CHASE '08: Proceedings of the 2008 international workshop on Cooperative and human aspects of software engineering
May 2008
120 pages
ISBN:9781605580395
DOI:10.1145/1370114
Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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Published: 13 May 2008

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Author Tags

  1. collaboration tools
  2. coordination
  3. geographically distributed product development
  4. social network analysis

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ICSE '08
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CHASE '08 Paper Acceptance Rate 28 of 34 submissions, 82%;
Overall Acceptance Rate 47 of 70 submissions, 67%

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Cited By

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  • (2022)The migration from forced remote work to hybrid work and its impacts on software quality: the case of a multinational companyProceedings of the XXI Brazilian Symposium on Software Quality10.1145/3571473.3571498(1-10)Online publication date: 7-Nov-2022
  • (2022)A Deep Dive into the Impact of COVID-19 on Software DevelopmentIEEE Transactions on Software Engineering10.1109/TSE.2021.308875948:9(3342-3360)Online publication date: 1-Sep-2022
  • (2020)On the use of coordination strategies in complex engineered system design projectsDesign Science10.1017/dsj.2020.296Online publication date: 4-Dec-2020
  • (2016)Configuring an appropriate team environment to satisfy relevant criteria2016 IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE)10.1109/FIE.2016.7757707(1-9)Online publication date: Oct-2016
  • (2015)Communication and Awareness Patterns of Distributed Agile TeamsAchieving Enterprise Agility through Innovative Software Development10.4018/978-1-4666-8510-9.ch001(1-16)Online publication date: 2015
  • (2015)Optimization of Service Development Strategy in a Global EnvironmentMaximizing Management Performance and Quality with Service Analytics10.4018/978-1-4666-8496-6.ch004(86-118)Online publication date: 2015
  • (2015)The impact of global dispersion on coordination, team performance and software quality – A systematic literature reviewInformation and Software Technology10.1016/j.infsof.2014.06.00257(277-294)Online publication date: Jan-2015
  • (2014)Overcoming challenges in global software development: The role of brokers2014 IEEE Eighth International Conference on Research Challenges in Information Science (RCIS)10.1109/RCIS.2014.6861027(1-9)Online publication date: May-2014
  • (2014)Software modularization in global software development2014 International Conference on Data and Software Engineering (ICODSE)10.1109/ICODSE.2014.7062705(1-6)Online publication date: Nov-2014
  • (2013)An Evolutionary Perspective on Socio-Technical CongruenceProceedings of the 2013 3rd International Workshop on Replication in Empirical Software Engineering Research10.1109/RESER.2013.8(15-24)Online publication date: 9-Oct-2013
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