Project Outcome Predictions: Risk Barometer Based on Historical Data

The influence of globalization on software development has been recognized as significant by many studies. Existence of unique factors that distinguish globally distributed software development environment increases the complexity of software development processes and brings challenges to project managers in achieving project success. This paper describes a study on globally distributed projects, which aims to determine the severity of global threats and provide an approach for sustainable support in managing project outcome predictions. Risk Barometer has been developed based on empirical data from industrial projects investigated during the study. It calculates the probability of negative outcome for global threats upon historical data. The results of this study provide practitioners that lack knowledge and experience a tool for more effective risk management, as well as cost and effort estimation for a globally distributed project.