FACTORS ASSOCIATED TO COMMUNICATION IN SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT TEAMS: A SYSTEMIC MODEL

Communication among software development teams is an integral part of the software development process. When well-managed, communication results in increased productivity, reduced costs and other implementation related efforts. Proper management of the communication process can distinguish success or failure in software development business. This study aims to investigate the factors related to software development teams' communication and how they influence communication considering the existing relationships among them through systems dynamics concepts. We extended a previous systematic literature review, and from the categories, we applied the dynamic systems approach to describe an archetype model with relationships among factors found in this review. By analysing the derived model, we founded that geographical distance was the most critical for negatively influencing communication. We provide evidence supporting our model for being used by practitioners to understand how these factors influence communication in software development teams, helping in weaving strategies to better manage them.