Global Software Development: The Challenges

Software development has become a globally sourced commodity. Software development processes such as requirements elicitation, development of components and maintenance tasks are often distributed across sites and countries. This research paper focuses on the distribution of the testing process, which is not a straightforward task. The research presented here has examined the management of virtual teams within a distributed testing environment in two multi-national companies in Ireland. This has elicited many issues over and above the "socio-cultural" issues so often discussed. Some of the difficulties encountered include language differences, use of communication tools, different process maturity levels, tools and standards, technical ability and knowledge management. Apart from the management of the testing process, we are also considering the technical issues involved in the global distribution of testing. A related study is being undertaken with teams of students from Masters classes in our two Universities to investigate a global testing infrastructure to identify critical factors that reduce the time to product stability while improving the competitive position of developing organizations. Teams of graduate computer science students in Ireland and in the United States will conduct operational testing on an industrial software system following several scenarios. We will compare various approaches of processing trouble reports and software updates to determine their impact on defects uncovered, the severity levels and types of defects, and the complexity of the modules in which the defects occurred. The results will be analyzed using theoretical models and compared to industry standards for defects at delivery, latent errors and time to product stability.