Distributed Software Development: Practices and challenges in different business strategies of offshoring and onshoring

TLDR

Distributed Software Development encompasses multiple business models, and selecting an appropriate model is challenging, making comparative literature essential for practitioners. This paper seeks to expand understanding of DSD by providing additional knowledge. The authors present empirical evidence from a case study of five companies that employed one or more DSD business models. They identify similarities and differences in challenges across models and examine how models, development processes, and project size and complexity interrelate.

Abstract

Distributed Software Development involves a number of different business models, and companies intending to embark on the journey of distributed development have difficulty choosing the model(s) that suits their process and current software practice. More literature that presents similarities as well as differences among these models, in terms of processes, practices and challenges that characterize them, is thus becoming critical to software practitioners. This paper intends to bring more knowledge in this direction. We present empirical evidence from a case study of DSD practice in five companies that had projects following one or more of the different DSD business models described in the literature. We discuss the similarities and differences in the challenges faced by the projects in these models, as well as the relationship between the models, development process, and project size and complexity, as reported in the projects studied.