Project Management Issues in Globally Distributed Development

This paper summarizes some of the key project management challenges of distributed software engineering that have been identified during internal project management audits over the past five years. Factors that have contributed to success in this environment are also addressed. Data from project management assessments conducted in Lucent Technologies organizations indicate that there is little difference with respect to common issues that affect project results between co-located and geographically distributed projects consisting of 20-500+ people. Many of these issues are related directly to information management, an unclear definition of roles, accountabilities and authorities, and a lack of relationships based on common goals, processes, and tools. In a large company, any solution for common project management issues has to take into account that many projects cannot be co-located. Industry needs tools and technologies that facilitate information management, relationship building, and the interfaces between different functional roles.