www.ietdl.org Published in IET Software Received on 25th May 2012 doi: 10.1049/iet-sen.2012.0088
Special Section: Management of Global Software Development: Opportunities, Challenges and Lessons Learned ISSN 1751-8806
Editorial Management of Global Software Development: Opportunities, Challenges and Lessons Learned Global software development (GSD) has recently emerged as a viable and important software development paradigm. Many companies have been adopting GSD approaches due to limited availability of software development expertise at the host companies and to reduce software development costs. Previous work suggests that half of the companies that have tried GSD have failed to realise the anticipated outcomes which has resulted in poor global relationships, misunderstanding of the projects’ requirements, high costs and poor services. There are many reasons for these failures. One of the major issues in GSD is that many clients endorse global contracts with their vendors prior to testing their project management capabilities for the global activity. However, the scope of GSD is expanding from focusing only on reducing cost to improving organisations’ overall management of software development capabilities. Understanding issues relating to managing GSD initiatives will help to ensure the successful outcome of projects and to maintain long lasting relationships between clients and vendors in different geographical locations. This special section is aimed to provide a forum for researchers and practitioners to share their advancements on management of GSD initiatives. Twelve papers were submitted which report new methodologies, experiments, technologies and empirical studies. Three reviewers were chosen for each paper and the review process resulted in five papers being selected for inclusion in the special section. The papers selected are as follows: 1. Analysis of cultural and gender influences on teamwork performance for software requirements analysis in multinational environments. 2. Optimising virtual team leadership in global software development. 3. Selective availability: coordinating interaction initiation in distributed software development. 4. Mixing continents, competences and roles: five years of lessons for software engineering education. 5. Towards an ontology for global software development.
Acknowledgments We are thankful to all the authors who responded to our call for papers by submitting their work. We are also thankful to IET Softw., 2012, Vol. 6, Iss. 3, pp. 165– 166 doi: 10.1049/iet-sen.2012.0088
IET Software, for accepting our proposal and helping us during the whole process of preparing this special section. Most importantly, we are greatly thankful to our colleagues who generously allocated their precious time and effort for helping us during the review process of selecting the papers accepted in this special section. MAHMOOD NIAZI Department of Information and Computer Science, King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals, Saudi Arabia Faculty of Computing, Riphah International University Islamabad, Pakistan School of Computing and Mathematics, Keele University, Keele ST 5 5BG, UK NARCISO CERPA Computer Science Department, Universidad de Talca, Chile
[email protected] VALENTINE CASEY Dundalk Institute of Technology and Lero- the Irish Software Research Centre GUEST EDITORS Dr. Mahmood Niazi is an Associate Professor in the Information and Computer Science Department, King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals Saudi Arabia. He is also adjunct Professor of Software Engineering at Riphah International University Pakistan and University Fellow at Keele University, UK. Dr Niazi has spent more than a decade with leading technology firms and universities as a process analyst, senior systems analyst, project manager, lecturer and professor. His research interests include global software engineering, software process improvement, evidence-based software engineering, social computing and requirements engineering. He holds 165
& The Institution of Engineering and Technology 2012
www.ietdl.org an MPhil from the University of Manchester, UK and a Ph.D. from the University of Technology Sydney, Australia. Dr. Narciso Cerpa is an Associate Professor in the Computer Science Department of the Faculty of Engineering at the “Universidad de Talca”, Chile. He has qualifications in computing engineering and information systems. He has 15 years of experience in the software development industry and 19 years of experience in academia and has held appointments in both Australia and Chile. He was Deputy Vice-Chancellor of Development and Innovation at the “Universidad de Talca” during the period 2003 – 2006. His research interests include software engineering, and electronic commerce. He is the Editor-inChief of the Journal of Theoretical and Applied Electronic Commerce Research and one of its founding members. He is a member of the Editorial Review Board of the Journal of Global Information Management (JGIM), member of the Editorial Board of International Journal of Information Systems in the Service Sector (IJISSS), and member of the Scientific Editorial Board of the Revista de Universidad y Sociedad del Conocimiento. He is also a member of the IFIP Working Groups 6.11 (Electronic Commerce – Communication Systems) and 8.4 (E-Business Information
166 & The Institution of Engineering and Technology 2012
Systems: Multi-disciplinary research and practice), and he was the Director of CollECTeR (Collaborative Electronic Commerce Technology and Research) Iberoamerica (2003 – 2008). Dr. Valentine Casey is a Senior Researcher in Dundalk Institute of Technology and a member of Lero the Irish Software Research Centre. His previous roles include Senior Lecturer and Research Area Leader at Bournemouth University, Lecturer at the University of Limerick and full time researcher with Lero. Over the last 14 years he has carried out extensive research in the areas of global software development (GSD), virtual software team operation and management, software process improvement, medical device software development, software testing, and the use of agile methods. He has over 20 years professional experience working in the software industry. His last industrial role, prior to undertaking his academic career was that of Software Quality Manager in an organisation which implemented a GSD strategy. He has also provided consultancy services focusing on distributed software development, software process improvement, software testing and the use of agile methods to organizations in the financial, telecom and medical device sectors.
IET Softw., 2012, Vol. 6, Iss. 3, pp. 165 –166 doi: 10.1049/iet-sen.2012.0088
