A case study of issue tracker introduction in a globally distributed inter-organizational software development project

Abstract

Issue management is one of the key processes in daily software development work. Like most other work processes it faces new challenges in a distributed software development context because of issues in communication, organization, and cultural differences.

The goal of this thesis was to help the case company in introducing an issue tracking system in the interface with a software development subcontractor, and collecting lessons learned for further deployment scenarios. The main focus was on analyzing the communication changes caused by the introduction of the issue tracker. The research was done as an explorative case study utilizing qualitative data from interviews and quantitative data extracted from issue tracking and source control systems.

The role of issue trackers in both collocated and distributed teams was investigated in an extensive review of literature in the fields of global software development and computer supported co-operative work. The literature background of issue tracking and issue tracker data analysis was also presented.

The case study started by defining the old issue and development tracking practices between the case company and one of its subcontractors. Based on the old processes and the workflow features of the issue tracker, new issue and new development tracking workflows were defined. The new workflows were deployed and result metrics were gathered using open-ended interviews and quantitative data from the issue tracking system, the company's source control system and by analyzing weekly teleconference memos.

Result analysis indicates that the issue tracker had become accepted as a part of the daily communication. The adoption started slowly, but towards the end of the data collection period the system had become the main channel for defect-related communication. A list of lessons learned was presented for further issue tracker deployments at the case company. The key findings of the study were apart from the successful issue tracker deployment the list of lessons learned and the way of analyzing the introduction of an issue tracker and tracing the effects of the process change over multiple communication channels, using both quantitative and qualitative data.