  There is an increasing need for organizations to collaborate with internal
and external partners on a global scale for creating software-based products
and services. Many aspects and risks need to be addressed when setting up such
global collaborations. Different types of collaborations such as engineering
collaborations or innovation-focused collaborations need to be considered.
Further aspects such as cultural and social aspects, coordination,
infrastructure, organizational change process, and communication issues need to
be examined. Although there are already experiences available with respect to
setting up global collaborations, they are mainly focusing on certain specific
areas. An overall holistic approach that guides companies in systematically
setting up global collaborations for software-based products is widely missing.
The goal of this thesis is to analyze existing literature and related
information and to extract topics that need be taken into account while
establishing global software development collaborations - to identify
solutions, risks, success factors, strategies, good experiences as well as good
examples. This information is structured in a way so that it can be used by
companies as a well-grounded holistic approach to guide companies effectively
in setting up long-term global collaborations in the domain software
development. The presented approach is based on scientific findings reported in
literature, driven by industry needs, and confirmed by industry experts.
