A Systematic Literature Review of Best Practices and Challenges in Follow-the-Sun Software Development

Abstract

Follow-the-sun (FTS) software development is a strategy used to reduce the length of software projects that are developed across globally distributed locations. However, due to communication and collaboration challenges, software companies find it difficult to adopt this development strategy during task allocation and daily project handovers. In this study, we present results from a Systematic Literature Review (SLR) performed on papers published between 1990 and 2012. Our goal was to identify best practices and challenges for FTS implementation. We found 36 best practices and 17 challenges for FTS. These results are discussed in this paper in order to indicate opportunities for future research and make our results useful for the project managers.