Challenges and Solutions in Distributed Software Development Project Management: A Systematic Literature Review

This paper presents a systematic literature review of the challenges, best practices, models, and tools in Distributed Software Development (DSD) Project Management. The objective is to collect and systematize reported knowledge in terms of what are the difficulties in managing DSD projects, what are the best practices to overcome these difficulties, and how existing models and tools support these practices. We found 54 works related to DSD project management, published between 1998 and 2009. Using the data systematically extracted from these works, we propose an evidence-based DSD project management improvement model. Our contention is that this model can support practitioners and researchers to better understand the landscape of DSD project challenges and devise more effective solutions to improve project management in a distributed setting.