Collaborative tools and processes to support software engineering shift work

This paper describes the construction of and early experiences with a software engineering support environment for projects using globally distributed teams. The goals of the project are twofold. Firstly, it aims to construct a pragmatic solution to the problems experienced by widely geographically dispersed groups which collaborate on software development projects. Secondly, it aims to experiment with processes which facilitate software shift work through exploitation of time differences between collaborating groups. The construction of the support environment, known as GWSE (Global Working in Software Engineering) system, is presented, including its architecture and integration with existing workflow, document and project management tools. The use of the GWSE system in a trial development project is then described, including an initial quantitative analysis of the collaboration overheads experienced.