International Journal of Computer Applications (0975 – 8887) Volume 177 – No. 36, February 2020 1 Practices for Effective Software Project Management in Global Software Development: A Systematic Literature Review Muhammad Yaseen City University of Science and Information Technology Peshawar, Pakistan Muhammad Ali Awan City University of Science and Information Technology Peshawar, Pakistan Atta Ur Rahman Department of Computer Science COMSATS University Islamabad Islamabad Said Nabi Department of Computer Science COMSATS University Islamabad Islamabad Sadiq Khan Department of Computer Science, International Islamic University Islamabad Mohim Bacha Department of Computer Software Engineering UET Peshawar ABSTRACT Effective software project management plays an important role during requirements collection and implementation for any software system. In Global Software Development (GSD), its significance increase more as stakeholders are far away across the globe. In GSD, challenges such as language differences and time zone differences cause significant barrier during requirements collection and thus need of effective project management increase more and more to handle challenges of GSD. This study address possible solutions and practices for effective global software project management. Through Systematic Literature Review (SLR), 25 practices are identified. These practices will help software vendors to better manage software projects in GSD. Keywords Practices, Effective software project management, Global Software Development, Systematic Literature Review. 1. INTRODUCTION Requirement Engineering (RE) deals with all aspects of software requirements from requirements collection to requirements implementation in systematic way [1][2]. RE consist of different phases. In requirement elicitation phase, requirements for software system are collected from clients by applying various elicitation techniques such as background study, interview, questionnaire, apprenticing [3][4]. In GSD, where clients and vendors are far away and there exist geographical distance thus proper requirements collection and management become more difficult. According to [5], due to barriers such as geographical distance, time zone differences and language differences, effective requirements collection and implementation in GSD become more and more difficult which can affect the quality of software systems and project completion time and cost [6]. In GSD, where there exist critical challenges during requirements elicitation, proper requirements management and implementation become a big challenge. In GSD, there is essential to implement practices needed for successful management of software project. The purpose of this research is to identify all possible practices for effective global project management. No SLR has been yet conducted to identify best practices for global project management. This current work will fill this research gap. Implementing all possible best practices will help software vendors to better implement RE in GSD. 2. BACKGROUND STUDY Systematic literature review is conducted by [7], where effective communication is identified as most critical success factor during successful requirements implementation in GSD. With effective communication channels, proper elicitation of requirements in GSD can be assured. Language is very essential in requirement collection as it disturbs transfer of knowledge and proper communication that depends entirely on appropriate usage of language [8]. In GSD this factor is a big challenge because mostly the clients and vendors face difficulties to fully cope the terminologies of other languages [9][10]. In GSD, timely communication is another big challenge because there exist difference of time zones among countries and sometimes this variation in time zones can increases that makes it difficult to communicate synchronously such as video or audio calls etc [7]. Time zone variance is a challenge for both vendors and clients in GSD and thus it requires appropriate solutions and practices [11][12]. Elicitation problems occur due to lack of proper communication and for which model is suggested in one of the studies [13]. The first phase in this model is to arrange interviews with several software industries and compare the consequences with outcomes as identified by research group. Theoretical modeling of requirements uncertainty and elicitation dimensions is the next step and the last phase of the model is the validation of model from different software organizations. Communicating knowledge and information’s in GSD is challenging and a big challenge [14]. Poor SRS shows that the knowledge managing was not properly conducted [15]. Proper discussion and negotiation on requirements in GSD is an crucial challenge to be overcome and but due to the stated challenges such as time differences, language barriers and culture differences it is quite difficult to have proper negotiations on requirements [16][17]. Trust should be established in GSD because without trust no team is possible and without team no collaboration is possible and without collaboration and trust a success is achieved only by luck [17]. Different implementation models are suggested for efficient requirements implementation in the context of GSD.