SYNCHRONOUS COMMUNICATION DEFICIT IN GLOBAL SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT: A SYSTEMATIC LITERATURE REVIEW OF CHALLENGES, MITIGATION STRATEGIES, AND A ROBUST CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK

Abstract

Global Software Development (GSD) has become popular in the modern software development industry because of the advantages it offers, such as cost savings, global access to expertise, and faster time-to-market. However, the distributed nature of GSD creates several challenges in communication, coordination, and collaboration among geographically dispersed teams. Among them, the absence of synchronous communication has emerged as a major issue with a significant impact on real-time interaction, decision-making processes, and the team's performance as a whole. In GSD environments, teams often use asynchronous communication due to different time zones and geographical dispersion, which can lead to delayed responses, misunderstandings, lower coordination efficiency, and reduced team cohesion. Ineffective synchronous communication mechanisms can contribute to these challenges, resulting in stalled projects and low productivity. This study aims to systematically identify the major issues associated with the lack of synchronous communication in Global Software Development and to analyse the mitigation strategies proposed in the extant literature. A Systematic Literature Review (SLR) following a structured protocol was conducted. Relevant studies were collected from major digital databases, including IEEE Xplore, Science Direct, Google Scholar, Semantic Scholar, Wiley Online Library, and Research Gate. After the stringent application of the inclusion, exclusion, and quality assessment criteria, a selection of primary studies was selected for detailed analysis. This study identifies major problems arising from the lack of synchronous communication in GSD environments, including delayed responses, limited overlapping working hours, communication breakdowns, and a lack of informal communication among team members. Additionally, some mitigation strategies were identified, such as scheduling working hours at the same time, using a real-time communication tool, adopting a structured communication protocol, and implementing collaborative practices to foster synchronous interaction. A total of 8 synchronous communication issues and 16 best practices in GSD were identified from the literature, Based on these findings, this study proposes a conceptual framework that shows the relationships between issues in synchronous communication issues and their corresponding mitigation strategies in GSD environments. The proposed framework provides a structured understanding that can help researchers and practitioners build more effective communication, coordination, and collaboration among distributed software development teams.