Global software development at siemens: experience from nine projects

ABSTRACT

We report on the experiences of Siemens Corporation in nine globally-distributed software development projects. These projects represent a range of collaboration models, from co-development to outsourcing of components to outsourcing the software for an entire project. We report experience and lessons in issues of project management, division of labor, ongoing coordination of technical work, and communication. We include lessons learned, and conclude the paper with suggestions about important open research issues in this area.

REFERENCES

• 1: Arora, A. and A. Gambardella, The Globalization of the Software Industry: Perspectives and Opportunities for Developed and Developing Countries. 2004, National Bureau of Economic Research: Washington, DC.
• 2: D. Caivano, An Empirical Study of Distributed Software Maintenance, Proceedings of the International Conference on Software Maintenance (ICSM'02), p.103, October 03-06, 2002
• 3: Erin Bradner , Wendy A. Kellogg , Thomas Erickson, The adoption and use of “BABBLE”: a field study of chat in the workplace, Proceedings of the Sixth European conference on Computer supported cooperative work, p.139-158, August 1999, Copenghagen, Denmark
• 4: Pearl Brereton, The software customer/supplier relationship, Communications of the ACM, v.47 n.2, p.77-81, February 2004 [doi>10.1145/966389.966394]
• 5: Elizabeth F. Churchill , Sara Bly, It's all in the words: supporting work activites with lightweight tools, Proceedings of the international ACM SIGGROUP conference on Supporting group work, p.40-49, November 14-17, 1999, Phoenix, Arizona, United States [doi>10.1145/320297.320302]
• 6: Damian, D.E. and D. Zowghi, Requirements Engineering challenges in multi-site software development organizations. Requirements Engineering Journal, 2003. 8: p. 149--160.
• 7: Christof Ebert , Casimiro Hernandez Parro , Roland Suttels , Harald Kolarczyk, Improving validation activities in a global software development, Proceedings of the 23rd International Conference on Software Engineering, p.545-554, May 12-19, 2001, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
• 8: Mark Handel , James D. Herbsleb, What is chat doing in the workplace?, Proceedings of the 2002 ACM conference on Computer supported cooperative work, November 16-20, 2002, New Orleans, Louisiana, USA [doi>10.1145/587078.587080]
• 9: James D. Herbsleb , Rebecca E. Grinter, Splitting the organization and integrating the code: Conway's law revisited, Proceedings of the 21st international conference on Software engineering, p.85-95, May 16-22, 1999, Los Angeles, California, United States [doi>10.1145/302405.302455]
• 10: Herbsleb, J.D. and A. Mockus, An Empirical Study of Speed and Communication in Globally-Distributed Software Development. IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, 2003. 29(3): p. 1--14.
• 11: Ellen Isaacs , Alan Walendowski , Steve Whittaker , Diane J. Schiano , Candace Kamm, The character, functions, and styles of instant messaging in the workplace, Proceedings of the 2002 ACM conference on Computer supported cooperative work, November 16-20, 2002, New Orleans, Louisiana, USA [doi>10.1145/587078.587081]
• 12: Robert E. Kraut , Lynn A. Streeter, Coordination in software development, Communications of the ACM, v.38 n.3, p.69-81, March 1995 [doi>10.1145/203330.203345]
• 13: Miles, M.B. and A.M. Huberman, Qualitative Data Analysis: An Expanded Sourcebook. 2nd ed. 1994, Thousand Oaks, California: Sage Publications, Inc.
• 14: Susan Elliott Sim , Richard C. Holt, The ramp-up problem in software projects: a case study of how software immigrants naturalize, Proceedings of the 20th international conference on Software engineering, p.361-370, April 19-25, 1998, Kyoto, Japan
• 15: Wenger, E., Communities of practice: Learning, meaning, and identity. 1998, London, UK: Cambridge University Press.

INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  D. Software
  D.2 SOFTWARE ENGINEERING
      D.2.9 Management
          Subjects: Life cycle

Additional Classification:
  D. Software
  D.2 SOFTWARE ENGINEERING
      D.2.9 Management
          Subjects: Productivity; Programming teams

General Terms:
Design, Economics, Management

Keywords:
geographically distributed development, global development, multi-site development, outsourcing