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Software industry is continuously exploring better ways to develop applications. A new phenomenon to achieve this is cloud‐based global software development (CGSD), which refers to the adoption of cloud computing services by organizations to support global software development projects. The CGSD approach affects the strategic and operational aspects of the way projects are managed. The objective of the study is to identify the success factors which contribute to management of CGSD projects. We carried out a multivocal literature review (MLR) to identify the success factors from the state‐of‐the‐art and the state‐of‐the‐practice in project management of CGSD projects. We identified 32 success factors that contribute to the management of CGSD projects. The findings of MLR indicate that time to market, continuous development, financial restructuring, and scalability are the most critical success factors for CGSD. Moreover, the findings of the study show that there is a positive correlation between the success factors reported in both formal literature and industry based gray literature. The findings of this study can assist the practitioners to develop the strategies needed for effective project management of CGSD projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Managing the cloud‐based software development outsourcing (CSDO) activities across the geographically distributed development sites are much challenging. This study aims to identify the success factors (SFs) for CSDO and prioritize them based on their significance. To achieve this objective, we conducted a systematic literature review (SLR) and survey study with industrial and academic experts. Finally, we applied the analytical hierarchy process (AHP) to develop the framework based on the prioritization of the identified SFs. We believe that the findings of this study will assist the industry practitioners and researchers in developing effective strategies for the successful implementation of CSDO activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Development and operations (DevOps) practices significantly accelerate and automate the continuous delivery and deployment of software systems. However, adopting DevOps concepts is not a straightforward job. Most organizations are not able to keep pace with the rhythm of continuous delivery and deployment, which are key DevOps attributes. Despite the significance of DevOps programs, it is still unknown why software development firms are demotivated or unable to adopt them. We tried to fill this gap by investigating, prioritizing, and developing the taxonomy of the key factors that could impact the adaptation and implementation of DevOps practices. We extracted a total of 16 factors from the available literature and empirically assessed them using the survey approach. The identified factors are further classified into three core categories of the software process improvement (SPI) manifesto. The analytical hierarchy process (AHP) approach was used to calculate the prioritization weight for each factor and present it as a taxonomy. The developed taxonomy provides a roadmap to tackle the key challenges to implementing DevOps and offers suggestions for streamlining DevOps practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Majority of software development firms are adopting the concepts of global software development (GSD) in order to develop high‐quality and low‐cost products. However, the requirements change management (RCM) becomes a significant challenge in the GSD environment because of the unavailability of proper RCM framework and taxonomy. The objective of this study is to develop a taxonomy of the challenging factors of the RCM process in GSD. The taxonomy is developed based on the results of the data collected during the survey study and the implementation of the analytical hierarchy process (AHP). Total 25 challenging factors are identified and mapped into four core categories, ie, "organizational management," "team," "technology," and "process." Moreover, the AHP analysis is performed to prioritize the challenging factors and their categories. The prioritization process highlight that "process" is the most significant category of the RCM challenging factors. The taxonomy developed in this study provides a robust framework to tackle problems associated with RCM activities in GSD environment, which is significant to the success and progression of GSD firms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most software development firms have adopted the concepts of global software development (GSD) to develop high‐quality and low‐cost products. However, GSD is not a straightforward process. It is associated with many challenges that are mostly related to requirements change management (RCM). In this study, we explore the motivators that contribute to managing RCM activities in the GSD environment. We extracted a total of 25 motivators using the systematic literature review (SLR) approach and conducted a survey study to empirically evaluate the findings of the SLR. The results of the applied Spearman's statistical test show that the findings of the SLR and survey study had a positive moderate correlation (rs(25) = 0.566). We further analyzed the reported motivators according to organization size. Finally, we developed taxonomies of the identified motivators based on the framework proposed by Ramasubbu and the project management body of knowledge. We believe that the taxonomies provide a robust framework for tackling the challenges of RCM, which is significant for the success and evolution of GSD firms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Software development firms have begun adopting the practice of global software development (GSD). The main reason for the shift toward globalization is the various benefits received by software development firms. However, there are several issues faced by GSD organizations, particularly those associated with software process improvement (SPI). It has been noticed that a formal process improvement approach could assist in successfully executing development activities in GSD. The core objective of this research work is to develop a global software engineering process improvement model (GSEPIM) to assess and improve software process activities in a GSD environment. The proposed model will be developed based on existing models in other domains, an empirical study conducted with GSD practitioners, and an understanding of critical success factors and challenges of SPI. In this study, the first step in the development of GSEPIM is completed by identifying the challenges of SPI in GSD and presenting a solution in the form of a robust framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Planning and managing of requirement change management (RCM) process in global software development (GSD) are a complicated task, but the RCM plays a significant role in developing the quality software within time and budget. The key aim of this study is to prioritize the factors that could positively influence the RCM program in GSD context. To achieve the study objective, the questionnaire survey study was conducted to get the feedback of the practitioners concerning the success factors of RCM in GSD context. Moreover, the fuzzy analytical hierarchy process (FAHP) was applied. The application of FAHP is novel in this research domain as it has been effectively applied previously in various other research areas, for example, supplier selection, electronics and electrical, personnel selection, and agile software development. The results of this study will provide the prioritization‐based taxonomy of RCM success factors and also contribute by introducing the novel FAHP approach in the research domain of RCM in GSD. The FAHP approach assists the practitioners to reduce the uncertainty and vague opinions of RCM experts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To improve and sustain the quality of software products, software process improvement (SPI) is needed. Currently, small and medium software enterprises (SMSEs) represent a high proportion of companies around the world and become a cornerstone in the worldwide industry economy. These companies have realized that improving their process is crucial for success, but they are facing difficulties to implement it due to limited resources, limited knowledge, and time constraints. This study aimed to identify the sustainability success factors (SSFs) that have a positive impact on implementing SPI efforts in SMSEs. Data were collected through a systematic literature review (SLR) approach and quantitatively through a survey questionnaire. A list of 44 SSFs was identified during SLR and empirical study. Results illustrate that there is a positive correlation between the ranks obtained from both dataset (rs (44) =.548, ρ =.001). Therefore, there would be significant differences between the SSFs identified in both datasets. In conclusion, the top‐ranked factors can then be used to guide the SPI coordinators on where they should focus their attention to reach the desired SPI goals, which is crucial to deliver the software products and also facilitates in development of model for SPIs in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Software traceability plays a critical role in software maintenance and evolution. We conducted a systematic mapping study with six research questions to understand the benefits, costs, and challenges of using traceability in maintenance and evolution. We systematically selected, analyzed, and synthesized 63 studies published between January 2000 and May 2020, and the results show that traceability supports 11 maintenance and evolution activities, among which change management is the most frequently supported activity; strong empirical evidence from industry is needed to validate the impact of traceability on maintenance and evolution; easing the process of change management is the main benefit of deploying traceability practices; establishing and maintaining traceability links is the main cost of deploying traceability practices; 13 approaches and 32 tools that support traceability in maintenance and evolution were identified; improving the quality of traceability links, the performance of using traceability approaches, and tools are the main traceability challenges in maintenance and evolution. The findings of this study provide a comprehensive understanding of deploying traceability practices in software maintenance and evolution phase and can be used by researchers for future directions and practitioners for making informed decisions while using traceability in maintenance and evolution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Requirements Change Management (RCM) is one of the challenges faced by Global Software Development (GSD) organisations as requirements evolution is inevitable due to dynamic business and operating environments. GSD organisations face issues when dealing with RCM because many organisations embark on GSD without understanding their readiness to undertake such an initiative. Currently, there is no readiness model to assess the RCM process in the context of GSD. The objective of this study is to develop a requirements change management readiness model (RCMRM) for GSD organisations. A Systematic Mapping Study (SMS) was conducted to identify the primary studies related to RCM in the GSD projects. By using SMS, 109 primary studies were selected and 73 RCM practices were identified which were used to design the readiness levels of the proposed RCMRM. To validate the RCMRM, initially, two case studies were conducted in two GSD organisations. Based on the suggestions and recommendations of the case study participants,the RCMRM was further modified. The updated version of RCMRM was further validated by two different GSD organisations. The results of the second case study indicate that RCMRM is effective in assessing the readiness of the RCM process in the context of GSD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The phenomenon of global software development (GSD) has been adopted by a majority of the software development firms to achieve the significant benefits it offers. However, there are many challenges faced by the GSD organizations, which are mainly related to requirements change management (RCM). The key objective of this study is to identify the challenges of RCM process in GSD domain. The systematic literature review (SLR) approach has been used to investigate the challenges of RCM activities, and a total of 30 challenges were identified. We have further classified the identified challenges in the domain of client and vendor GSD organizations, aiming to provide a clear understanding of the RCM process and its challenges in the context of both types of GSD organizations. The identified challenges were also categorized into three core types according to the organization size (small, medium sized, or large), which highlights the significance of each challenge for a specific organizational size. In addition, the criticality of the identified challenges was assessed using the criteria of challenges having a frequency greater than or equal to 50%. According to the findings of this study, a framework is provided that could help GSD organizations address the problems related to RCM in a GSD environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Software organizations are increasingly combining agile methodologies and distributed software development (DSD) for efficiently and effectively built software products. There are numerous challenges associated with scaling agile methods in a distributed environment. Our study is intended to explore and prioritize the challenges for scaling agile practices in the DSD environment. This study was divided into 3 stages. In the first stage, 22 challenges were identified from literature review and grouped into 4 categories: management, team, technology, and process based on discussion with experts. In the second stage, an online questionnaire study was conducted to validate the identified challenges. Finally, analytic hierarchy process method was used to prioritize challenges and their categories based on their relative importance. The results highlighted that management is a most significant category as compared with the other categories. Similarly, lack of management commitments, lack of effective communication, lack of knowledge sharing, etc are identified as the most significant challenges that need to be focused by the organizations for scaling agile methodologies. On the basis of the research findings, we could conclude that the identified challenges along with their categories provide a robust framework to scale agile methodologies in the DSD environment. Investigating the challenges that negatively affect scaling of agile methodologies in the DSD environment, validating the challenges using online questionnaire survey, and prioritizing the challenges using AHP method based on their relative importance, this study provides a robust framework to scale agile methodologies in the DSD environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]