Low Degree of Separation Does Not Guarantee Easy Coordination

Abstract

In the times of increased global competition, software companies are forced to search for more effective development practices and often team up with onshore and offshore partners to develop faster and better products. In this paper we empirically explore a highly distributed onshore development project with a complex coordination structure. Our findings demonstrate that onshore development projects are not protected from coordination and communication challenges and task allocation complexities. Previously reported qualitative findings regarding organizational problems in this paper are supplemented with quantitative measurements of the true coordination delays and additional analysis of coordination patterns and their evolution.