On-going Ph.D research

1. 1
Supporting team coordination across
organizational boundary in Global software
development
Supervised by
Reidar Conradi
Daniela S. Cruzes
Torgeir Dingsøyr
2/21/2013

2. 2
Agenda
Introduction
Problem outline
Research questions
Expected contributions
Research design
Preliminary result
Publication plan
Appendixes
2/21/2013

3. 3
Introduction
• Global software development (GSD) as a modern
paradigm in producing software intensive products
– 80 - 90% of software projects are now globally distributed
(Fryer & Gothe, 2008)
– Large companies have many distributed branches:
Microsoft, Google, Ericson, Phillips, Siemens …
– Software offshoring – big market : 270 bil USD in 2010, grow
at 5-8% per year
– Growth of Open source communities:
 160000 projects in Source Forge, doubled in 7 years
 Many new OSS repository in last 7 years: Google Code, Ohloh,
Github, Gitorious …
2/21/2013

4. 4
Introduction
• Many remaining challenges …
… 91% of them [interviewed developers] reported problems working
with colleagues across geographic locations… (Espinosa et al., 2003)
… distributed work items appear to take about 2.5 times as long to
complete as similar items where all the work is collocated …(Herbsleb
et al., 2003)
… a distributed binary has 9.2% more failures than a collocated
binary … (Bird et al., 2009)
… likelihood of integration failures is almost 14 times higher than
when all engineers are in the same location … (Cataldo et al., 2011)
… to name a few
2/21/2013

5. 5
Introduction
• GSD main issue: distance matters
(Noll et al. 2010, Smite et al. 2010)
– Geographical distance
– Temporal distance
– Cultural distance
– Organizational distance
– Work process distance
• Influenced factors:
 Communication  Team productivity
 Coordination  Software quality
 Control  Project performance
2/21/2013

6. 6
Introduction
Model for IS project success (Espinosa et al., 2006)
2/21/2013

7. 7
Introduction
• Research issue 1: influence of distances are often
hard to investigate
– Distances are often mixed with each other:
• Compare between distributed task and collocated task
• No distinguish between inter and intra organizational context
– Hard to understand the influence of separate distance
• Little or no control of other distances when investigating one
• Lack of good proxy for measuring distances
2/21/2013

8. 8
Introduction
• Research issue 2: Relatively small amount studies on
inter-organizational context in GSD
– On organizational strategies
– On engineering process
– On relationship to software quality and team performance
2/21/2013

9. 9
Introduction
Distribution of research topics on GSD (Smite et al., 2010)
2/21/2013

10. 10
Introduction
Empirical studies on GSD distances and project
outcomes
Geographical distance
Temporal distance
Work process distance
Cultural distance
Organizational distance
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40
Research on influence of global distances on project outcomes (Nguyen-Duc et al., 2012)
2/21/2013

11. 11
Introduction
• Research issue 3: little amount of studies on OSS
ecosystem as a case of GSD
– Homogeneous engineering process
– Diverse organizational objectives & policies
– Study on OSS ecosystem often focus on business model
level
– Empirical studies on influence of global distances on team
coordination and project outcomes: only 1 (out of 45 papers)
in OSS context (Nguyen-Duc et al., 2012)
2/21/2013

12. 12
Problem outline
• Team coordination is important for GSD project
success (Herbsleb et al., 2003, Espinosa et al., 2006)
– is a necessity, complexity and overhead in GSD
• Team coordination:
– “activities required to maintain consistency within a work
product or to manage dependencies within the workflow”
(Malone et al., 1990)
• Team coordination mechanism (adapted from Kotlarsky et al.,
2008)
– By organization design
– By work standard
– By shared artifacts and infrastructure
– By interpersonal process
2/21/2013

13. 13
Problem outline
• There are a research gap on studying influences of
organizational distances on team process (such as
team coordination) and project outcomes in various
GSD context (commercial vs. OSS projects)
2/21/2013

14. 14
Problem outline
Technical plane
- Development tasks
- Source code files
Social plane
Organizational plane
Adapted from (Kwan et al., 2010)
It is necessary to consider organizational boundary
in socio-technical systems
2/21/2013

15. 15
Problem outline
Mechanism Activity Organizational issue
Organizational Align organization structure with limited by
design product structure – Conway laws organizational
Work standard Establish common management, collaboration policy,
collaboration, engineering process: infrastructure and
Agile process, OSS development process
Shared artifacts Common infrastructure - GIT,
CVS, JIRA
Interpersonal Facilitate communication,
process relationship building
Current proposed solution on team coordination
are often relied within organization boundary
2/21/2013

16. 16
Research questions
• How team coordination across organizational
boundaries can be improved in GSD?
2/21/2013

17. 17
Research questions
① RQ1: What characterize organizational boundaries
in team coordination in GSD?
② RQ2: How do organizational boundaries influence
team coordination in GSD?
③ RQ3: What kind of coordination practices support
team coordination across organizational boundaries
in GSD?
2/21/2013

18. 18
Expected results
① A comprehensive view on team coordination
challenges with global boundaries with a specific
focus on organizational boundary challenges and
solutions
② A conceptual framework for team coordination
across organizational boundaries in GSD
③ A recommendation for coordination practices across
organizational boundaries in GSD

19. 19
Studies
① Collaborative process between firms and OSS
community on adopting OSS components
② Differences among firm paid developers in OSS
projects in team collaboration
③ Relationship between GSD distances, team
coordination and project outcomes
④ Challenges with collaborating across organizational
boundary in GSD projects
⑤ Merging divergent code bases in inter-organizational
software projects
2/21/2013

20. 20
Research design
① (Pre-determined) survey
② Exploratory case studies
③ Systematic literature review
④ Exploratory case studies
⑤ Confirmative case studies
2/21/2013

21. 21
Research plan
2/21/2013

22. 22
Preliminary result
1. P01: Nguyen Duc, A., Cruzes D.S., Ayala C.P. and Conradi, R. 2011. Impact of
Stakeholder Type and Collaboration on Issue Resolution Time in OSS Projects.
OSS 2011, Salvador, Brazil, October 2011
2. P03: Nguyen Duc, A., Cruzes D.S., Conradi, R., Hst M., Franch X. and Ayala,
C.P. 2012. Collaborative Resolution of Requirements Mismatches When
Adopting Open Source Components. REFSQ 2012, Essen, Germany, March
2012
3. P04: Ayala, C.P, Cruzes D.S., Nguyen Duc, A., Conradi, R., Franch X., Host M.
and Muhammad A.B. 2012. OSS Integration Issues and Community Support: An
Integrator Perspective. OSS 2012, Hammamet, Tunisia, September 2012.
Accepted
4. P06: Nguyen Duc, A., Cruzes D.S. and Conradi, R. 2012. Dispersion,
coordination and performance in global software teams: a systematic review.
ESEM 2012, Lund, Sweden, September 2012.
2/21/2013

23. 23
Preliminary result
① RQ1: What characterize organizational boundaries in team
coordination in GSD?
– difference in task resolution time and communication delay
between firm-paid developers and volunteers (P01)
– functional and non-functional requirement mismatches are
handled in cooperative process between commercial firms
and OSS community (P03)
– common problems that organizations face when integrating
OSS component (P04)
② RQ2: How do organizational boundaries influence team
coordination in GSD?
– challenges with dispersion dimensions and their
relationship to team coordination and performance in GSD
(P06)
2/21/2013

24. 24
Publication plan
① RQ1: What characterize organizational boundaries in team
coordination in GSD?
– P08 [conference paper]
② RQ2: How do organizational boundaries influence team coordination
in GSD?
– P07 [journal paper]
– P10 [conference paper]
③ RQ3: What kind of coordination practices support team coordination
across organizational boundaries in GSD?
– P09 [conference paper]
– P11 [journal paper]
5 more included publications.

25. 25
2/21/2013