Managing competence transfer in global software companies

Globalization is strongly affecting the software industry. One of the trends has been offshoring more and more work to be done on different sites in the form of global software development (GSD). Modern Information and Communication Technology (ICT) allows information sharing globally immediately with no delays. Software development tools are global and configuration management can be arranged in a way that allows working on different sites. The software development work is often done wherever it is most cost-effective. Development work frequently takes place in countries that are located far from the place where the contract has been made with the customer. As a result of this trend, competence transfer (CT) between software development sites has become an important issue. The subject of CT has not yet been studied extensively. The aim of this work is to introduce a model for companies as they distribute work globally between sites to manage CT. As a result, a competence transfer grid is introduced. This research has been conducted at the Tampere University of Technology.