Follow The Sun Software Development: New Perspectives, Conceptual Foundation, and Exploratory Field Study

Follow The Sun (FTS) is a special case of global software development. FTS means that software work is handed off every day from one development site to the next -- many time zones away. The main benefit is reduction in development duration. Surprisingly, unlike the broader trend of offshore outsourcing, FTS is practiced rarely and misunderstood often.In this article we present a foundation for understanding FTS including a definition, a description of its place in the life cycle, and choice of methodologies. We also present the outcomes of a first quasi-experiment designed to test FTS and measure the speed of software work. This quasi-experiment is part of our comprehensive research to explore FTS and its implications.

[1]  Fred P. Brooks,et al.  The Mythical Man-Month , 1975, Reliable Software.

[2]  Milton D. Rosenau,et al.  Schedule Emphasis of New Product Development Personnel , 1989 .

[3]  D. Wilemon,et al.  A Survey of Major Approaches for Accelerating New Product Development , 1992 .

[4]  Preston G. Smith,et al.  Developing products in half the time , 1995 .

[5]  E. Carmel.  Cycle time in packaged software firms , 1995 .

[6]  Ian Gorton,et al.  Enabling software shift work with groupware: a case study , 1996, Proceedings of HICSS-29: 29th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences.

[7]  Erran Carmel,et al.  Global software teams: collaborating across borders and time zones , 1999 .

[8]  J. Nunamaker.  Proceedings of the 53rd Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences , 1999 .

[9]  Audris Mockus,et al.  An empirical study of global software development: distance and speed , 2001, Proceedings of the 23rd International Conference on Software Engineering. ICSE 2001.

[10]  K. Beck,et al.  Extreme Programming Explained , 2002 .

[11]  Shari Lawrence Pfleeger,et al.  Preliminary Guidelines for Empirical Research in Software Engineering , 2002, IEEE Trans. Software Eng..

[12]  Jim Highsmith,et al.  Agile Software Development Ecosystems , 2002 .

[13]  J. Alberto Espinosa,et al.  Modeling Coordination Costs Due to Time Separation in Global Software Teams , 2003 .

[14]  C. Saunders,et al.  My time or yours? Managing time visions in global virtual teams , 2004 .

[15]  Monica Yap,et al.  Follow the sun: distributed extreme programming development , 2005, Agile Development Conference (ADC'05).

[16]  Orit Hazzan,et al.  A framework for teaching software development methods , 2005, Comput. Sci. Educ..

[17]  Pankaj Jalote,et al.  Assigning tasks in a 24-h software development model , 2006, J. Syst. Softw..

[18]  Orit Hazzan,et al.  Using a role scheme to derive software project metrics , 2006, J. Syst. Archit..

[19]  Pearl Brereton,et al.  Modelling software development across time zones , 2006, Inf. Softw. Technol..

[20]  James J. Treinen,et al.  Following the sun: Case studies in global software development , 2006, IBM Syst. J..

[21]  Amar Gupta,et al.  Research Commentary: Toward the 24-Hour Knowledge Factory - a Prognosis of Practice and a Call for Concerted Research , 2006 .

[22]  Erran Carmel,et al.  Building Your Information Systems from the Other Side of the World: How Infosys Manages Time Zone Differences , 2006, MIS Q. Executive.

[23]  J. Alberto Espinosa,et al.  Do Gradations of Time Zone Separation Make a Difference in Performance? A First Laboratory Study , 2007, International Conference on Global Software Engineering (ICGSE 2007).

[24]  Amar Gupta.  Deriving Mutual Benefits from Offshore Outsourcing: The 24-Hour Knowledge Factory Scenario , 2007 .

[25]  André van der Hoek,et al.  Continuous coordination a new paradigm to support globally distributed software development projects , 2007 .

[26]  RaffoDavid,et al.  Using simulation to evaluate global software development task allocation strategies , 2007 .

[27]  Siri-on Setamanit,et al.  Using simulation to evaluate global software development task allocation strategies , 2007, Softw. Process. Improv. Pract..

[28]  Pratap K.J. Mohapatra,et al.  Modeling the 24‐h software development process , 2008 .

[29]  Amar Gupta.  Outsourcing and Offshoring of Professional Services: Business Optimization in a Global Economy , 2008 .

[30]  Michael Geisser,et al.  Agile Methodologies for Distributed Collaborative Development of Enterprise Applications , 2008, 2008 International Conference on Complex, Intelligent and Software Intensive Systems.

[31]  Igor Crk,et al.  Agile Software Processes for the 24-Hour Knowledge Factory Environment , 2008, J. Inf. Technol. Res..

[32]  Franz Rothlauf,et al.  Approaches to Collaborative Software Development , 2008, 2008 International Conference on Complex, Intelligent and Software Intensive Systems.