Improving Coordination and Communication in Distributed Software Development through Context-Based Software Artifacts Awareness: A Controlled Experiment

Abstract

Distributed Software Development (DSD) has brought many competitive advantages, such as increased productivity, improved product quality and cost reduction. However, the geographic and temporal distances and sociocultural differences between distributed teams, expanded some challenges and, above all, added new requirements with regard to communication and coordination. This scenario has influenced on the software artifacts that are produced and/or modified, because inconsistencies and ambiguities can be generated on them. In this study, we evaluate the applicability of an approach to support the context awareness on software artifacts such as source code and class diagram in DSD. A controlled laboratory experiment was conducted with 18 participants. During the experimental study, participants used two approaches. The results were collected and analyzed with statistical methods. It was found that the proposed approach directly influences the time taken to carry out the tasks of class diagrams and source code. Although, statistically, the proposed approach has not increased the number of artifacts identified correctly during activities, there was a reduction of effort compared to the time spent in carrying out activities. Thus, the proposed approach offers adequate support for context awareness on software artifacts, thereby contributing for distributed software development mainly on coordination and communication between distributed teams.