Evaluating a Networked Virtual Environment for Globally Distributed Avionics Software Development

Increasingly, business pressures drive development projects to use systems and software engineers distributed over two or more geographical locations. Previous observations indicate that improving the speed and cost of software development while distributing it across a globally distributed team requires remediation - i.e., commonly used collaboration technologies provide an inadequate level of shared understanding among developers at different regional facilities. This paper describes an ongoing corporate evaluation of an immersive networked virtual environment (AWE) to determine its potential for improving globally distributed software development.