Articulation work in small-scale offshore software development projects

The paper describes coordination practices of small and medium enterprises (SME) that outsourced parts of their software development to offshore vendors. Our case study in a German company shows that the geographic distribution of knowledge and expertise requires continuous informal coordination across the teams. Such practices can be described as a combination of formal coordination and informal articulation work in the sense of Anselm Strauss' theoretical framework. Both are closely interwoven and connected to the use of media such as coordination tools and instant messengers. We conclude that SME risk losing their core competencies when neglecting articulation work and hint at mismatches between scientific recommendations and actual development practices of SME.