Abstract

Offshore software development outsourcing (OSDO) has become an increasingly popular Global Software Engineering (GSE) paradigm for companies to rely the permanent improvement and tailoring with lower cost, in order to develop high quality software more efficiently. However, OSDO is not out of risks and software development organizations face various challenges like geographical dispersion, cultural and language differences, communication and coordination challenges and lack of ICTs etc. A research survey was conducted in OSDO industry to explore different communication and coordination challenges and its mitigation in OSDO relationships. Data were collected through questionnaire survey from 42 experts relevant to outsourcing companies. Our findings reveal that cultural differences, geographical dispersion, language differences, lack of ICT/technological cohesion, lack of credence and lack of informal/face-to-face communication are the critical challenges faced by OSDO vendors in communication and coordination process with their client organizations in outsourcing relationships. We have also identified a total of 75 practices in order to mitigate these critical challenges. The understanding of these challenges and its practices will assist OSDO vendors in order to successfully plan and manage communication and coordination activities in OSDO relationship with their clients.