Global Software Engineering in ISO 9001:2000 TickIT Guide

Abstract: Many organizations are moving towards Global Software Engineering and Global Development is becoming a major trend. Global Software Engineering comes with its own set of challenges that may affect projects in a negative way. However, it is still becoming increasingly popular among organizations because of its lure of cheap labour, portrayal of a global presence and a diverse talent/labour pool of resources that the organizations get to select from. The need for evaluating the processes of these global organizations has also grown and a number of Software Process frameworks are being designed and restructured to help cover the gap of evaluating these processes in a global environment. This thesis aims to examine one popular Software Process framework i.e. the ISO 9001:2000 TickIT. The authors provide informed recommendations of how and where the TickIT guide can incorporate various aspects of Global Software Engineering in its guidelines. The empirical validation of this research consisted of both interviews and surveys. The interviews were conducted with TickIT auditors working in the fields of Global Software Engineering and Software Process Improvement. These interviews provided insight into the minds of the people already working in the global software domain. The survey was in the form of an online questionnaire that was sent out to TickIT auditors from the United Kingdom and Sweden. Their replies were analyzed and the final informed recommendations for the TickIT guidelines were provided based on both the interview replies and the questionnaire analysis.