Experiences with Global Software Architecture Design and Development

In this paper, we describe our experience designing and developing a system-for acquiring and processing data from electric, gas, and water meters-among four development sites located in Switzerland, Germany, and the U.S. Some of the techniques we used for project planning and management are described. We observed that a number of multicultural variables affect the overall performance of the development team. Based on our experience, a set of recommendations is given for managing global software development teams. Although we collectively felt that a single-site project team is likely to be more efficient than a multi-site team, the diversity of ideas and skills offered by a multi-site team resulted in a product line architecture that is flexible, modifiable, and adaptable to different market requirements.