Exploring early warning signs of failure in offshore-outsourced software development projects at the team level

Organizations face many challenges in executing offshore-outsourced software development (OOSD) projects involving several countries. In such contexts, complex software development efforts are exposed to a greater number of risks, which make OOSD projects prone to failures. We analyzed 19 cases of OOSD project failures to explore the concept of early warning signs (EWS) in OOSD projects at the team level. Using the grounded theory methodology, we studied the EWSs specific to OOSD project failures. We classified the EWSs of failure into early signals of failure and early warning issues in order to help project managers notice the early failing indications. Further, we identified and characterized EWSs of failure and divided them into six broad categories. An OOSD project failure model incorporating the EWSs of failure was developed to understand the initial stages of OOSD project failure. Our research has shed more light on project development failures in outsourcing, a rare topic of investigation in information systems research