  Today, software-intensive systems are increasingly being developed in a
globally distributed way. However, besides its benefit, global development also
bears a set of risks and problems. One critical factor for successful project
management of distributed software development is the allocation of tasks to
sites, as this is assumed to have a major influence on the benefits and risks.
We introduce a model that aims at improving management processes in globally
distributed projects by giving decision support for task allocation that
systematically regards multiple criteria. The criteria and causal relationships
were identified in a literature study and refined in a qualitative interview
study. The model uses existing approaches from distributed systems and
statistical modeling. The article gives an overview of the problem and related
work, introduces the empirical and theoretical foundations of the model, and
shows the use of the model in an example scenario.
