Distributed Software Development Project Management

1. Distributed Software Development Project Management Submitted to Professor ShervinShirmohammadi in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the course ELG 5100 Yasser Ali Khan (7304650) • KaziMasudulAlam (6075873) November 25, 2013

2. Outline • Distributed Software Development • Challenges • Best Practices • Communication Protocol • Tools • TAMRI • Models • Project Management Model • TAPER • Conclusion

3. Distributed Software Development (DSD) Teams and/or stakeholders based in different geographic locations

4. Distributed Software Development (DSD) • Why DSD? • Reduce costs – cheap labor, 24 hour development • Improve quality – skilled labor & latest technology • Effective project management of DSD • 40% failure rate [Betz & Makio] • Traditional project management techniques may not apply

5. DSD Survey 70 DSD papers 1997-2009 18 Tools Supported by 29 Challenges Mitigated by 32 Best Practices 14 Models Supported by da Silva et al.

6. DSD Project Management Challenges and Best Practices

7. DSD Best Practice – Communication Protocol What types of artifacts have to be communicated? e.g. status, plan, task distribution, standards & templates Who are the team members responsible for each of the artifacts? What are their roles? e.g. prepare, inform, review How the communication will take place? frequency, format Binder (2010)

8. Global Communication Matrix

9. DSD Project Management Tools and Models

10. DSD Tools

11. TAMRI: A Task Distribution Tool • The tool implements an algorithm that uses • A set of weighted goals • Characteristics of the project tasks and the available sites • Bayesian networks to adapt to specific environments. • Causal relationships between characteristics and goals for deriving a weighted list of suggestions for task allocations. Lamersdorf et al.

12. Application Scenario (TAMRI) One component is to be developed and tested

13. Application Scenario (TAMRI) If the strongest weight is put on quality • (a) The tool suggests assigning testing to B. However, if more emphasis is put on development time • (b) The model slightly favors C as testing site due to the possibility of round-the-clock development.

14. DSD Models

15. Project Management Model • Centralized • Distributed Project Management with Local Coordinator • Distributed Project Management with Functional Coordinator Binder (2010)

16. TAPER A generic framework for establishing an offshore development center Hofner et al.

17. Experience with TAPER • Applied to new German customer • The engagement started in 2004 • Reached to over 175 highly skilled professionals from without competence in the domain • The team consistently met all the targets with high satisfaction • Trust • Top management convinced but high degree of reluctance from customers development team • Doubts about ability to deliver, doubts about India. Fear about loosing job • Counselling helped and over time two teams were comfortable • A “yes” in India is “I am listening” and in German, “I understood and will do”

18. Experience with TAPER • Assess • Started with a pilot project • Iterative development cycle was of 40 days • To be successful talk, talk and talk • Open Issue List (OIL) • Common set of tools • Prove • Domain training started with train-the-trainer • Advanced training was of 2 weeks • Customer team helped building team spirit and in recruitment • Little considerations shown by both sides built a relationship • Weekly video conferences • Every three months workshop • Formal feedback every six months

19. Experience with TAPER • Enhance • Size of 200 skilled professional by 2007 • Later involved in innovation leading to cutting edge technology • Reengineer • A future follow-up will be conducted

20. Conclusion • DSD project management is more challenging compared to collocated management. • Communication challenge can be mitigated using communication protocols. • The task distribution challenge can be mitigated using tools like TAMRI • Frameworks like TAPER can help mitigate the trust challenge in DSD and establish an offshore center .

21. References • Silva, F. Q., Prikladnicki, R., França, A. C. C., Monteiro, C. V., Costa, C., & Rocha, R. (2012). An evidence‐based model of distributed software development project management: results from a systematic mapping study. Journal of Software: Evolution and Process, 24(6), 625-642. • da Silva FQB, Costa C, França ACC, Prikladnicki R. Challenges and solutions in distributed software development project management: A systematic literature review. Proc. Fifth IEEE International Conference on Global Software Engineering, ICGSE 2010. • Binder, J. (2007). Global project management: communication, collaboration and management across borders. Gower Publishing, Ltd. • Hofner, G., & Mani, V. S. (2007, August). TAPER: A generic framework for establishing an offshore development center. In Global Software Engineering, 2007. ICGSE 2007. Second IEEE International Conference on (pp. 162-172). IEEE. • Lamersdorf, A., & Munch, J. (2009, July). TAMRI: a tool for supporting task distribution in global software development projects. In Global Software Engineering, 2009. ICGSE 2009. Fourth IEEE International Conference on (pp. 322-327). IEEE. • Betz, S., Makio, J., & Stephan, R. (2007, August). Offshoring of software development-methods and tools for risk management. In Global Software Engineering, 2007. ICGSE 2007. Second IEEE International Conference on(pp. 280-281). IEEE.

22. Thank You for Your Attention!

23. Backup Slides

24. Project Management Model – Centralized USA India Project Manager c c China Binder (2010)

25. Project Management Model – DistributedProjectManagement with Local Coordinators USA India Project Manager Local Coordinator Local Coordinator c c China Binder (2010)

26. Project Management Model – DistributedProjectManagement with Functional Coordinator USA India Project Manager Test Coordinator Development Coordinator c c c China Binder (2010)