Critical Success Factors of Offshore Software Development Projects: A Multi-dimensional Relevance Analysis from a German Perspective

摘要

In Germany, first experiences with offshore software development were not consistently positive. Media reports of various companies, whose offshore projects could not live up to their expectations, were abundant. In particular, this can be traced back to an insufficient project management by the project partners. In this context, some research has been carried out on the critical success factors of offshore software development projects from the perspective of U.S. clients, Indian providers, and European providers. However, from the perspective of German-speaking clients, there is only little research on the critical success factors of such projects. The paper at hand attempts to fill that void. Therefore, based on a critical success factor model for OSD projects from a German-speaking client perspective, we decided to examine the relevance of the identified critical success factors in more detail. The objective is to create a deeper understanding of successful project management in the realm of offshore software development.