Communication in distributed software development: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 08:42, 15 October 2019

Revision as of 19:22, 28 February 2020

Line 1:

'''Communication in Distributed Software Development''' is an area of study that considers communication processes and their effects when applied to [[software development]] in a globally [[distributed development]] process. The importance of communication and coordination in software development is widely studied <ref name=":2">{{Cite journal|last=Kraut|first=Robert E.|last2=Streeter|first2=Lynn A.|date=1995-03-01|title=Coordination in software development|url=http://go.galegroup.com/ps/anonymous?id=GALE%7CA16764439&sid=googleScholar&v=2.1&it=r&linkaccess=fulltext&issn=00010782&p=AONE&sw=w&authCount=1&isAnonymousEntry=true|journal=Communications of the ACM|language=English|volume=38|issue=3|pages=69–81|doi=10.1145/203330.203345}}</ref> and [[Organizational Communication|organizational communication]] studies these implications at an organizational level. This also applies to a setting where teams and team members work in separate physical locations. The imposed distance introduces new challenges in communication, which is no longer a face to face process, and may also be subjected to other constraints such as teams in opposing time zones with a small overlap in working hours.

There are several reasons that force elements from the same project to work in geographically separated areas, ranging from different teams in the same company to [[outsourcing]] and [[offshoring]], to which different constraints and necessities in communication apply. The added communication challenges result in the adoption of a wide range of different communication methods usually used in combination. They can either be in real time as in the case of a video conference, or in an asynchronous way such as [[email]]. While a video conference might allow the developers to be more efficient with regards to their time spent communicating, it is more difficult to accomplish when teams work in different time zones, in which case using an email or a messaging service might be more useful.

Line 60:

[[Email]] is a method of exchanging digital messages between people using digital devices such as computers, mobile phones and other electronics. Unlike the most [[instant messaging]] tools, on email neither the users nor their computers are required to be online simultaneously. The cost of using email in company varies, since, for example, the company might have its own email server.

Empirical studies demonstrated that all team members on a software development team used this tool effectively. Unlike [[instant messaging]], email messages are intended to be more stand-alone and less sensitive to the context of communication, and thus producing email messages requires more time than traditional IM messages.<ref name=":03">{{Cite book|last=Niinimaki|first=T.|date=August 2011|title=Face-to-Face, Email and Instant Messaging in Distributed Agile Software Development Project|url=https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/6065582/|journal=2011 IEEE Sixth International Conference on Global Software Engineering Workshop|pages=78–84|doi=10.1109/icgse-w.2011.15|isbn=978-1-4577-1839-7}}</ref>

Some email providers are [[Gmail]], [[Outlook.com]] and [[ProtonMail]].