Collaborative software engineering methodologies and tools for distributed development at SAP: SAP Labs India Private Limited

Abstract

The objective of this project has been in two parts. With SAP Labs taking up more projects into a distributed development mode the organization is facing problems of communication and coordination. There are technical and non-technical issues related to distributed development. The scope of this project has been to look at the technical issues and get some more insights into the same. Formalizing the communication on how the design and system intricacies get communicated is the first requirement. This is being validated by a survey of 54 developers on a design document explained in UML as well as SPIKES methodology. Survey results point to the fact that any representation which can adequately depict processing flow helps in reducing the misinterpretations of the requirement. UML seems to be better suited for understanding the output, input and human agents. At the same time for representing process flow SPIKES seems to be a good medium based on the comprehension of the participants. Second part of the project was to look at existing tools which help in distributed development and do a benefit analysis on the same. Out of the large set of tools 10 were short-listed and a detailed study done. Based on the analysis of the attributes 2 tools have been short listed for further analysis and follow up. Team center from Inovie seems to be suitable for SAP. Another tool which is very close is eRoom. So SAP Labs could look at either of these and deploy it on an experimental basis and make the final decision