Planning a GSD project involves making numerous decisions processes, development environments, meeting schedules, communication tools, training, specifying component interfaces, and designing a schedule of builds and reviews. Decisions in each of these areas involves a tradeoff between costs and risk reduction, as well as decisions about where to invest effort and funds to reduce coordination risks. There is no single set of choices that is appropriate for all projects, since some projects are much riskier than others, and the nature of the risks often differs dramatically. We present an approach, synthesized from the research literature and our own experience, that can help organizations assess project risks, make explicit decisions about how to address them, and to effectively monitor project coordination.

24 pages

*Siemens Corporate Research
**Siemens AG, Corporate Technology

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