Assessments in global software development: a tailorable framework for industrial projects

Assessments are an effective technique for software quality assurance. As global software development (GSD) becomes the standard, an assessment framework must be flexible to support different sourcing and shoring models. Although much work exists on inspections and reviews, an assessment framework which addresses these challenges is missing. We present a systematic yet flexible assessment framework. The paper contributes: i) The description of our assessment framework which addresses four challenges: Appropriateness of a software requirements specification (SRS), viability of software architectures and SRS, wholeness of work packages, and compliance of results with predefined quality objectives. ii) A detailed explanation how the assessment framework can be tailored to support offshore and outsourcing scenarios. This paper describes the result of a two years research initiative at Capgemini SD&M and serves the practitioner to implement assessment frameworks according to his needs. We also discuss open research questions of high relevance for the software industry.