Startup companies are seeking for a business model by means of innovative products and need external investments until they can stabilize this product in the market and then start to grow to become a mature company. Nevertheless, many of these companies fail before the growth phase, emerging the need to seek for methods that help these companies to achieve their goals. This paper intends to identify the techniques, practices and tools used in software development on startups and from the results present a knowledge base that can be transferable to the industry. A systematic mapping study was conducted using a classification schema to attest the primary studies quality as well as a exclusion and inclusion criteria to select them. A total of 112 studies are found at the end of the searches and 19 of them were selected to form the mapping study. From these studies a total of 24 techniques, 31 practices and 37 tools were found. As a result the mapping study presents a technical knowledge base that seeks to fill the research gap and that can also be used as a starting point for both researchers and startups' practitioners.

This paper presents a preliminary communication maturity model named C2M. The C2M model aims to help organizations to identify the maturity of communication-related aspects and processes providing a tool to reveal what practices need to be improved. The model is composed of three maturity areas respectively organized into factors, goals, and practices. It has been preliminarily evaluated in two steps. First, two focus group meetings were conducted in two organizations aiming to identify how fit the model is to attend its purpose. Second, a diagnosis activity was conducted in two organizations aiming to observe how the model is perceived when used in practice. The experts who participated in the diagnosis activity reported that the application of the model allowed them to become aware of communication issues their teams were facing that they had no knowledge of. Their positive feedback is an initial indication that the model is fit to point out the maturity of communication processes and practices in distributed software projects.

Distributed Software Development (DSD) is characterized by physical distance and/or different time-zones among those involved in the process of developing software. This physical and temporal separation entails some advantages, but it also brings challenges related to communication, coordination and cooperation in carrying out complex software development tasks. Cultural and time-zone differences, lack of standardized processes, tools and infrastructure incompatibility are examples of such challenges. Communication is among one of the main challenges faced by distributed teams. Therefore, this study aims at moving towards a consolidated knowledge about communication in distributed projects by developing a better understanding of which factors influence communication processes and which are the reported effects of this influence in DSD projects. To attend our goal, we conducted a systematic tertiary literature review of communication in distributed projects. The research questions that guided our study are: Q.1 Which factors influence communication in Distributed Software Development projects?; Q.2 Which are the effects of these factors in communication in Distributed Software Development projects?; and Q.3 Which factors identified in Q.1 are related to the effects identified in Q.2 in Distributed Software Development projects? We briefly present below the result of the identification, analysis, and synthesis of the effects of communication process in DSD projects and the factors in the distributed context that affect communication effectiveness.