Global Software Development: The challenge of communication models
Hans S. Tømmerholt - Master 2007
This thesis looks at various communication models in global software development and how they affect the development process. Four models are explored, a hierarchical model, a network model, a community model inspired by Free/Libre Open Source Software and a composite model. The discussion is informed by a case study of one globally distributed development project, the District Health Information Software version 2. This project has development nodes in Norway, Vietnam, India and Ethiopia. The material is based on the analysis of data from a mailing list and commits to a source code repository used in the project and a series of interviews with participants. The author has also participated actively in the project. The analysis shows that participation is very skewed with the Norwegians dominating the communication and source code production. Some implications are suggested, mainly reducing “gaps of understanding” between the participants, including language issues, contextual gaps and problems in understanding the application and its tools and frameworks.