Benefits of global software development: The known and unknown

Pär J. Ågerfalk, Brian Fitzgerald, Helena Holmström Olsson, Eoin Ó Conchúir

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionpeer-review

Abstract

Organizations are increasingly moving to the global software development (GSD) model because of significant benefits that can accrue. However, GSD is fraught with difficulties arising from geographical, temporal and socio-cultural distances. The emphasis in the literature to date has typically been on how to overcome these significant challenges associated with GSD. While a number of GSD benefits have been identified in the literature, there are also a number of less obvious, what we term 'unknown,' potential benefits that can accrue from GSD. Here we synthesize and integrate an overall set of potential GSD benefits and categorize them according to the organizational, team and process level to which they are most applicable. The 'unknown' includes organization benefits, such as improved resource allocation, team benefits, such as reduced coordination cost and improved team autonomy, and process benefits, such as improved documentation and clearly defined processes.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationMaking Globally Distributed Software Development a Success Story - International Conference on Software Process, ICSP 2008, Proceedings
Pages1-9
Number of pages9
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2008
EventInternational Conference on Software Process, ICSP 2008 - Leipzig, Germany
Duration: 10 May 200811 May 2008

Publication series

NameLecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics)
Volume5007 LNCS
ISSN (Print)0302-9743
ISSN (Electronic)1611-3349

Conference

ConferenceInternational Conference on Software Process, ICSP 2008
Country/TerritoryGermany
CityLeipzig
Period10/05/0811/05/08

Keywords

  • Benefits
  • Challenges
  • Global software development
  • Offshoring

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