Software integration in global software development: Success factors for GSD vendors

Global software development (GSD) is in a booming stage from the last decade with the advances in information and communication technologies (ICTs). Despite of the benefits gained from GSD, the developer organizations still face a lot of difficulties in integrating the software components, developed by various GSD teams, into a final product. The objective of the study presented in this paper is to find out critical success factors (CSFs) for vendors that can play a positive role at any stage of the software integration process. To achieve the purpose we conducted a systematic literature review (SLR) for the identifications of the factors that can be adapted to assist the integration process at various stages i.e. before integration, during integration and after the integration. We have found a total of fourteen success factors among which nine factors are ranked as CSFs. Some of the top ranked CSFs are “Consistency in Requirements and Architecture Design”, “Intra and inter team Communication and Coordination” and “Component/Unit Testing prior to integration”.