Analysing Requirements Issues in Global Software Development
Rehan Ahmad · 2010
The main reason companies use Global Software Development services is the higher development cost of the local service providers. Many organizations are participating in Global software development (GSD), expecting to gain benefits, which includes reduction in cost, better use of shortage resources, access to talent, tax benefit and many more. At the same time, GSD poses challenges and difficulties due to geographic dispersion, time-zone differences, as well as cultural and language differences. These generic and common problems have created considerable difficulties in conducting Requirement engineering activities. In distributed projects, physical distances between stakeholders and group members limit their face-to-face interaction and thus create special challenges in the communication, which is an essential part in software development process. Despite these challenges, GSD is expected to continue to be an important strategic option for the software industry. The motive of this research work is to analyse the types of requirement issues that arises in GSD. A tool based methodology is proposed to manage the resolution of those issues, using a repository of current requirement issues Issues can be of many types, i.e. communication issues, cultural issues, client-vendor conflict, technical issues, conflicts in RE approaches, low client involvement and many more. In this repository issues can be recorded in such a way that all stake holders can access them globally. The issues can also be prioritised by the help of issue tracker application. Analysis of empirical and qualitative studies are also been overviewed using case studies of different organisations.