Extending Survivability Models for Global Software Development with Media Synchronicity Theory

In this paper we propose a new framework to assess survivability of software projects accounting for media capability details as introduced in Media Synchronicity Theory (MST). Specifically, we add to our global engineering framework the assessment of the impact of inadequate conveyance and convergence available in the communication infrastructure selected to be used by the project, on the system ability to recover from project disasters. We propose an analytical model to assess how the project recovers from project disasters related to process and communication failures. Our model is based on media synchronicity theory to account for how information exchange impacts recovery. Then, using the proposed model we evaluate how different interventions impact communication effectiveness. Finally, we parameterize and instantiate the proposed survivability model based on a data gathering campaign comprising thirty surveys collected from senior global software development experts at ICGSE' 2014 and GSD' 2015.