Problems and Solutions in Distributed Software Development: A Systematic Review

Nowadays software development activity tends to be decentralized, thus expanding greater development efforts towards more attractive zones for organizations. The type of development in which the team members are distributed in remote sites is called Distributed Software Development (DSD). A variant of the DSD is Global Software Development (GSD), where the team is distributed beyond the borders of a nation. The main advantage of this practice is mainly that of having a greater availability of human resources in decentralized zones with less cost. On the other hand, some disadvantages appear due to the distance that separates the development teams. This article presents a systematic review of the literature related to the problems and the solutions proposed up to the present day in DSD and GSD with the purpose of obtaining a vision of the state-of-the-art which will allow us to identify possible new research lines.