Global Software Development - Coordination and project management strategies from a vendor perspective

Global software development (GSD) is often impeded by global distance which may be geographical, cultural, temporal or linguistic. When compared to a collocated setting, specific methods are required to coordinate a range of activities in the GSD environment. Therefore, to manage and reduce global distance there is a need for continuous coordination within both client and vendor companies. Our literature review [Deshpande et al, 2011], shows that only 15% of the research studies for GSD are from the vendor’s perspective. There is a similar assertion made by Gonzalez et al (2006) where they identified that only 16% of the research studies explore outsourcing from the perspective of the service provider or vendor. Vendor companies have solved many of the global distance related issues. Both client and vendor companies need insight into these solutions which will assist them to successfully coordinate distributed projects. The research presented in this paper is addressing these gaps. Following our systematic literature review and empirical research within vendor companies, we have compared GSD coordination from the vendor perspective with the Project Management Body of Knowledge guide [PMBOK® Guide, 2008]. We have established that while the PMBOK® Guide partially supports GSD coordination within vendor companies, there are some solutions implemented by vendors but are not included in it. In this paper we present a comparative analysis between the human resource management techniques of the PMBOK® Guide with the coordination practices in GSD that in future will be incorporated into a model for coordination of tasks in GSD