Context: Planning and managing task allocation in Global Software Development (GSD) projects is both critical and challenging. To date, a number of models that support task allocation have been proposed, including cost models and risk-based multi-criteria optimization models.

Objective: The objective of this paper is to identify the factors that influence task allocation in the GSD project management context.

Method: First, we implemented a formal Systematic Literature Review (SLR) approach and identified a set of factors that influence task allocation in GSD projects. Second, a questionnaire survey was developed based on the SLR, and we collected feedback from 62 industry practitioners.

Results: The findings of this combined SLR and questionnaire survey indicate that site technical expertise, time zone difference, resource cost, task dependency, task size and vendor reliability are the key criteria for the distribution of work units in a GSD project. The results of the t-test show that there is no significant difference between the findings of the SLR and questionnaire survey. However, the industry study data indicates that resource cost and task dependency are more important to a centralized GSD project structure while task size is a key factor in a decentralized GSD project structure.

Conclusion: GSD organizations should try to consider the identified task allocation factors when managing their global software development activities to better understand, plan and manage work distribution decisions.