Software development distributed across national borders - A Cace Study of Volvo IT

Abstract

Our study focuses on software development distributed across national borders, the case of Volvo IT. The question at issue is what challenges can appear in a system change process that takes place across national borders and how can these challenges be avoided or reduced. We have concentrated on four fields significant for the case study. The different fields are: mutual understandning among the employees, cultural differences, the distribution of knowledge and work and different communication technologies. The result of our case study points at deficient distribution of core competence among the employees at Volvo IT. Knowledge needs to be spread more efficiently between different divisions. The directions regarding electronic communication needs to be more explicit. To obtain this a suggestion is to work according to different models. A united goal and a mutual understanding are important if you want distributed teamwork to achieve a good result. The report is written in Swedish.