English

A Risk-driven Model for Work Allocation in Global Software Development Projects

Software Engineering 2013-12-10 v1

Abstract

Risks and potential benefits of distributing software development projects globally depend to a large extent on how to allocate work to different development sites and regions. Existing methods in task allocation are likely to omit the relevance of considering a multitude of criteria and the impact of task distribution on risks and potential benefits. To assess risks stemming from specific work distributions and to exploit organization-specific experience, we have developed a customizable risk-driven model. It consists of two main steps: Suggesting a set of task allocation alternatives based on project- and site-specific characteristics and analyzing it with respect to possible project risks stemming from the work distribution. To evaluate the model, we conducted a series of semi-structured interviews in a multinational IT company. The results of the evaluation show that the suggestions of the model mostly comply with the retrospective views voiced by the involved experienced managers.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1312.2319,
  title  = {A Risk-driven Model for Work Allocation in Global Software Development Projects},
  author = {Ansgar Lamersdorf and Jürgen Münch and Alicia Fernández-del Viso Torre and Carlos Rebate Sánchez},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1312.2319},
  year   = {2013}
}

Comments

10 pages. The final publication is available at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/articleDetails.jsp?arnumber=6063144

R2 v1 2026-06-22T02:23:27.767Z