A Comparative Empirical Study of Communication in Distributed and Collocated Development Teams

Abstract

Communication models adopted in large-scale software engineering projects have significant impact on the efficacy of communication. We strove to understand these models by empirically examining synchronous communication within distributed and collocated teams at a large Fortune 500 organization. Our data imply that the overhead for tool support of synchronous communication for distributed teams are generally unacceptably high and that collocated teams are as likely to employ alternatives to face-to-face communication with collocated team members as distributed. Data also imply that communication patterns and models for both distributed and collocated teams evolve naturally over time to meet needs as opposed to a well-defined process delineated at project inception. Finally, data imply that communication models tend to be hybrids of existing communication models, suggesting a continual evolution of team communications over time. These implications collectively suggest that developers are adapting to collaborating with remote team members within this organization, perhaps realizing a new stage of evolution within the software engineering community.