Abstract—Communicating and managing customers’ requirements in software development projects play a vital role in the software development process. While it is difficult to do so locally, it is even more difficult to communicate these requirements over distributed boundaries and to convey them to multiple distribution customers. This paper discusses the communication of multiple distribution customers’ requirements in the context of customised software products. The main purpose is to understand the challenges of communicating and managing customisation requirements across distributed boundaries. We propose a model for Communicating Customisation Requirements of Multi-Clients in a Distributed Domain (CCRD). Thereafter, we evaluate that model by presenting the findings of a case study conducted with a company with customisation projects for 18 distributed customers. Then, we compare the outputs of the real case process and the outputs of the CCRD model using simulation methods. Our conjecture is that the CCRD model can reduce the challenge of communication requirements over distributed organisational boundaries, and the delay in decision making and in the entire customisation process time. Keywords—Customisation Software Products, Global Software Engineering, Local Decision Making, Requirement Engineering, Simulation Model. I. INTRODUCTION HE software industry has shifted its attention to global software engineering. Nevertheless, numerous challenges have arisen. In order to meet the challenges associated with global adoption, changes in software engineering practices are needed. Requirements engineering (RE) serves a very important role in the software development process in both collocated and distributed domains [1]. Managing the communication of customer requirements is a key component of the development production process for the marketplace. While it is difficult to negotiate and communicate these requirements locally, it is even more difficult to communicate them over distributed boundaries, particularly to multiple customers. This difficulty increases in distributed software development (DSD) projects as well as projects that have multiple distributed customers across organisational and cultural boundaries. In the last two decades, a significant A.M. Qahtani is with School of Electronics and Computer Science, University of Southampton, Southampton, United Kingdom (corresponding author e-mail: amq1u10@ecs.soton.ac.uk). G.B. Wills and A.M. Gravell are with School of Electronics and Computer Science, University of Southampton, Southampton, United Kingdom (e-mail: gbw@ecs.soton.ac.uk, gbw@ecs.soton.ac.uk). transition from co-located forms of development to global software development has taken place, requiring more communication across organizational boundaries [1], [2]. Requirement engineering in a distributed domain is a complex intersection phenomenon that encompasses numerous technical, social, and organisational aspects [3]. In recent years, the amount of research conducted in the fields of requirement engineering and requirement management have increased [4]. Different aspects of requirement engineering in both distributed and global development environments have been examined in order to identify challenges and propose solutions [1]. Meanwhile, customised software has become commonplace in the software industry, particularly due to the boom in outsourcing software and the offshore development process for many software development vendors [5]. This research aims to identify the requirements of multiple distributed customers in the context of customised software products. To achieve this goal, we began by reviewing the previous research on requirements engineering in the development and outsourcing process in a DSD setting. We propose a model for Communicating Customisation Requirements of Multi-Clients in a Distributed Domain (CCRD). Thereafter, we evaluate that model by presenting the results of a case study of a company with customisation projects for 18 distributed customers. Next, we compare the outputs of the real case process and the outputs of the CCRD model using simulation methods. We believe that managing customisation requirements in the DSD context is important, and local negotiation of customers’ requirements has seen successes in many agile development projects in the DSD domain. In addition, our conjecture is that CCRD model can reduce the challenge of communication requirements over distributed organisational boundaries, and reduce the delay in decision making and in the entire customisation process time. II. RELATED WORK Global software development has been of significant interest in the last several years, as it aids software development projects in overcoming certain difficulties associated with recruiting qualified practitioners in their projects. Furthermore, it benefits development projects in terms of cost and productivity [6]. However, many challenges have arisen with the shift to distributed development, such as adequate communication and issues related to coordination The Impacts of Local Decision Making on Customisation Process Speed across Distributed Boundaries: A Case Study A. M. Qahtani, G. B. Wills, A. M. Gravell T World Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology International Journal of Computer and Information Engineering Vol:9, No:1, 2015 63 International Scholarly and Scientific Research & Innovation 9(1) 2015 ISNI:0000000091950263 Open Science Index, Computer and Information Engineering Vol:9, No:1, 2015 publications.waset.org/10000153/pdf