research-article

Does latitude hurt while longitude kills? geographical and temporal separation in a large scale software development project

Authors:

Patrick Wagstrom,

Subhajit DattaAuthors Info & Claims

ICSE 2014: Proceedings of the 36th International Conference on Software Engineering

Pages 199 - 210

https://doi.org/10.1145/2568225.2568279

Published: 31 May 2014 Publication History

Abstract

Distributed software development allows firms to leverage cost advantages and place work near centers of competency. This distribution comes at a cost -- distributed teams face challenges from differing cultures, skill levels, and a lack of shared working hours. In this paper we examine whether and how geographic and temporal separation in a large scale distributed software development influences developer interactions. We mine the work item trackers for a large commercial software project with a globally distributed development team. We examine both the time to respond and the propensity of individuals to respond and find that when taken together, geographic distance has little effect, while temporal separation has a significant negative impact on the time to respond. However, both have little impact on the social network of individuals in the organization. These results suggest that while temporally distributed teams do communicate, it is at a slower rate, and firms may wish to locate partner teams in similar time zones for maximal performance.

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Cited By

Santos RRalph PArshad AStol K(2023)Distributed Scrum: A Case Meta-analysisACM Computing Surveys10.1145/362651956:4(1-37)Online publication date: 10-Nov-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3626519
de Souza Santos RRalph PDwyer MDamian DZeller A(2022)A grounded theory of coordination in remote-first and hybrid software teamsProceedings of the 44th International Conference on Software Engineering10.1145/3510003.3510105(25-35)Online publication date: 21-May-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3510003.3510105
Datta SBhattacharjee AMajumder S(2021)Links do Matter: Understanding the Drivers of Developer Interactions in Software Ecosystems2021 IEEE International Conference on Software Maintenance and Evolution (ICSME)10.1109/ICSME52107.2021.00068(619-623)Online publication date: Sep-2021
https://doi.org/10.1109/ICSME52107.2021.00068
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Index Terms

Does latitude hurt while longitude kills? geographical and temporal separation in a large scale software development project
1. Social and professional topics
  1. Professional topics
    1. Computing and business
    2. Management of computing and information systems
      1. Project and people management
2. Software and its engineering
  1. Software creation and management
    1. Software development process management
  2. Software notations and tools
    1. Software configuration management and version control systems

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Published In

cover image ACM Conferences

ICSE 2014: Proceedings of the 36th International Conference on Software Engineering

May 2014

1139 pages

ISBN:9781450327565

DOI:10.1145/2568225

General Chair:
Pankaj Jalote
IIIT-Delhi, India
,
Program Chairs:
Lionel Briand
University of Luxembourg, Luxembourg
,
André van der Hoek
University of California, Irvine, USA

Copyright © 2014 ACM.

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Published: 31 May 2014

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May 31 - June 7, 2014

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Cited By

Santos RRalph PArshad AStol K(2023)Distributed Scrum: A Case Meta-analysisACM Computing Surveys10.1145/362651956:4(1-37)Online publication date: 10-Nov-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3626519
de Souza Santos RRalph PDwyer MDamian DZeller A(2022)A grounded theory of coordination in remote-first and hybrid software teamsProceedings of the 44th International Conference on Software Engineering10.1145/3510003.3510105(25-35)Online publication date: 21-May-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3510003.3510105
Datta SBhattacharjee AMajumder S(2021)Links do Matter: Understanding the Drivers of Developer Interactions in Software Ecosystems2021 IEEE International Conference on Software Maintenance and Evolution (ICSME)10.1109/ICSME52107.2021.00068(619-623)Online publication date: Sep-2021
https://doi.org/10.1109/ICSME52107.2021.00068
Miller CRodeghero PStorey MFord DZimmermann T(2021)How Was Your Weekend?Proceedings of the 43rd International Conference on Software Engineering10.1109/ICSE43902.2021.00064(624-636)Online publication date: 22-May-2021
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1109/ICSE43902.2021.00064
Bardhan IDatta SMajumder S(2021)Degree doesn't Matter: Identifying the Drivers of Interaction in Software Development Ecosystems2021 28th Asia-Pacific Software Engineering Conference (APSEC)10.1109/APSEC53868.2021.00048(410-420)Online publication date: Dec-2021
https://doi.org/10.1109/APSEC53868.2021.00048
Datta SRoychoudhuri RMajumder S(2021)Understanding the relation between repeat developer interactions and bug resolution times in large open source ecosystemsJournal of Software: Evolution and Process10.1002/smr.231733:4Online publication date: 1-Apr-2021
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1002/smr.2317
Sammapun UBunyakiati P(2018)On Selecting Collaborative Modeling Tools2018 IEEE 42nd Annual Computer Software and Applications Conference (COMPSAC)10.1109/COMPSAC.2018.00122(791-792)Online publication date: Jul-2018
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Laukkanen EPaasivaara MItkonen JLassenius C(2018)Comparison of release engineering practices in a large mature company and a startupEmpirical Software Engineering10.1007/s10664-018-9616-723:6(3535-3577)Online publication date: 1-Dec-2018
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Datta S(2018)How does developer interaction relate to software quality? an examination of product development dataEmpirical Software Engineering10.1007/s10664-017-9534-023:3(1153-1187)Online publication date: 1-Jun-2018
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Anderson LKieliszewski C(2017)A Socio-Technical Perspective in Support of Information Sharing for Diverse Teams in Today's Workplace2017 IEEE 3rd International Conference on Collaboration and Internet Computing (CIC)10.1109/CIC.2017.00059(416-420)Online publication date: Oct-2017
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