Global Software Teams

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Global Software Teams
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Definition

• A global software team is defined as
• A team in which individual members are separated
  by a national boundary while actively
  collaborating on a common systems project

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Factors Affecting Global Software Teams

• Catalyst factors
• Sustaining factors
• Size factors
• Vision factors

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Catalyst factors

• Specialized talent
• programming talent the Watts study showed
  fastest programmer was 30 times quicker than
  slowest
• Global labor shortage hiring immigrants?

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H1-B Visas

• National Academy of Sciences presented a study
  October 30, 2000
• Concluded that immigrant labor is good in a tight
  labor market
• Economy would slow-down without such labor
• No wage depression
• Recommended doubling H1 fees for American
  training programs

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Catalyst Factors

• Acquisitions
• Increasing global mergers and acquisitions
• Baan (based in Netherlands) acquired Canadian,
  US, Spanish, and British companies and merged
  them with existing sites in India and Brazil
• Acquisitions have led to software teams suddenly
  having to collaborate

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Catalyst factors

• Reduction in development costs
• Looking for low cost labor
• India is acknowledged giant of offshore
  programming earn 25-30 of US counterparts
• Others include Philippines, Russia, China
• US workers drawn to more glamorous systems jobs
  someone still has to do the dirty work

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Catalyst factors

• Globalized presence
• Global businesses must establish themselves as
  global players
• Transnational strategies suggest centers of
  excellence
• Often takes the form of software development
  centers around the world

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Catalyst factors

• Reduction in time-to-market
• Follow-the-sun development
• Exploit time zone differences to create a 24 work
  schedule on a given project
• Turns a disadvantage into an advantage

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Catalyst factors

• Proximity to customer
• Software development is a interaction-intensive
  process
• Needs face-to-face communication
• Needs constant communication
• Best to have a part of the development team local

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Sustaining factors

• Once the initial desire to set up dispersed
  software teams spurs their use, what sustains
  them
• Dispersed projects usually first on chopping
  block
• Natural need to simplify get rid of these
  complex teams

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Sustaining factors

• Development rigor
• Smaller, co-located teams use informal mechanisms
  for development
• Dispersion often leads to greater formalism of
  coordination and control
• Specific standards
• Specific methodologies
• Specific quality control issues

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Sustaining factors

• Internal freshness
• Diversity brings innovation
• Global teams have cultural synergies
• E.g. global software manager called architectural
  review meeting with systems managers from 6
  countries their views profoundly changed the
  specs of the system

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Sustaining factors

• Distance from distractions
• Away from the madding crowd.. No distractions of
  a world headquarters
• European site called santas little helpers
• Foreign team members live near their homes, with
  their families. High loyalty and work ethic

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Sustaining factors

• Experience
• Remote sites have climbed the learning curve
• Experience at distant sites can be leveraged into
  centers of excellence

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Size Factors

• Scale
• Single location IS shops can soon become too
  large and unwieldy
• Baans expansion to other countries was based on
  size issues
• Microsoft moved away from its single center ethos
  for same reason

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Vision factors

• Two visions of the future
• Location transparency
• Virtual organization
• Virtualness already exists
• Gartner group predicts 140 million people will be
  telecommuting by 2003
• Virtual organizations are team-based
• Less hierarchicalmore network-like structure

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Traditional vs. Virtual Teams

• Traditional

• Virtual

• Co-located members - Distributed members

• Face-to-face interaction - Electronic
  communication

• Informal communication - Structured and
  continuous

• Share completed work - Continually share
  incomplete work

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Six Centripetal Forces of Successful Global
Software Teams
Telecom Infrastructure
Product Architecture
Team Building
Collaborative technology
Development Methodology
Managerial techniques
(From Carmel, 1999)
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First Force Telecommunications Infrastructure

• Foundation of global software teams
• Teams need reliable, high bandwidth connections
• Emerging nations POTS must provide
• Voice
• Fax
• Data
• VPNs

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Telecommunications Example of Ivory Systems

• Small US company set up collaborative development
  with programmers in India
• In 1994, no ISPs data transfer consisted of
• Backup all code on Friday
• Fed Ex to US over weekend
• With US team members on Monday
• Caused significant delays in project

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Telecom Best Practices

• Invest in reliable, high bandwidth connections to
  all desktops at all sites
• Establish consistent hardware and software
  platforms
• Good telecommunications does not eliminate need
  for travel

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Second Force Collaborative Technology

• Sometimes referred to as groupware
• Path to location transparency
• Aims at fostering both formal and informal
  communications
• Technologies include
• Email
• Voice mail
• Discussion lists

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Email vs. Facemail

• Email is dominant
• Facemail Technologically backward means of
  communication, clearly inferior to voicemail and
  email. Involves actually speaking to someone
  face-to-face. Considered highly inefficient.
• Email naturally creates lateral communications

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Time-Space Matrix
Time
Synchronous
Asynchronous
E-mail Voice mail Video-mail Groupware Discussion
lists
Video conference Audio conference E-chat E-whitebo
ard
Different
Place
Meetingware
Same
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Objectives of Collaborative Technologies

• Serves as team memory and knowledge center
• Provides each team member a 360? view
• Fosters sense of community creates shared context

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Collaborative Technology Best Practices

• Quickly standardize on collaborative technologies
• Introduce rich set of collaborative technologies
  do not use just one method
• Train team members in use of new collaborative
  technologies
• Get team members to use the technologies
• Dont overwhelm
• Be sensitive to cultural differences
• Provide the 360? view

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Third Force Development Methodology

• The map that guides the team through the SDLC
• Becomes common language of the team
• Methodology a systematic approach to one
  complete phase of SDLCincludes set of
  guidelines, activities, techniques, and tools.
• Common methodology leads to consistent
  expectations

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Development Methodology Best Practices

• Impose framework before development begins
• Educate all team members on chosen methodology
• Define and agree to terms every day
• Consider following methodology strategies
• Force standardization
• Blend various methodologies
• Give high level guidelines only

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Fourth Force Product Architecture

• Determines if dispersed sites can work in
  consonance
• Based on concept of modularity
• For collaboration to work, system modules should
  be self-contained with few interdependencies
• Basis of modularity coupling and cohesion

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Modularity

• Interdependence should be minimized to reduce
  coordination costs
• Interdependence determined by coupling and
  cohesion
• Coupling degree of interaction between modules
• Cohesion degree to which module is a
  well-defined functional whole

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Coupling and Cohesion
High
Low
Good
Coupling
Cohesion
Bad
High
Low
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Task Allocation Strategies

• Module-based allocation
• Sites A and B build and test different modules
• Phase-based allocation
• Site A does the design, Site B does development,
  Site C does testing
• Integrated allocation
• Sites work closely together across modules and
  development stages
• Sometimes referred to as follow-the-sun

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Product Architecture Best Practices

• Modularize
• Anticipates points of weakness in task allocation
• Usually occurs at hand-off from site-to-site or
  phase-to-phase

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Fifth Force Building Teams

• Building trust
• Milestone teams
• Constant communication
• Lateral communication
• 360? view
• Team communication protocols
• Many forms of English
• Personal bridges between sites liaisons, travel,
  expatriates
• Cultures impact on teams
• Managing time zone differences

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Sixth Force Managerial Techniques

• Global Teams need to be structured do not let
  them grow organically
• Plan for inevitable conflicts
• Use the six fundamental methods of project
  management
• Create statement of work
• Estimate tasks times and costs
• Work breakdown schedule
• Task timelines
• Create project budget
• Conduct risk management (top ten risks)

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Managerial Techniques

• Measure unique dimensions of global teams
• Use of collaborative technologies
• Meetings and face-time
• Site hand off efficiency
• Telecommunications
• Travel

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Managerial Techniques

• Select global software manager with mix of
  technical and managerial skills
• MERIT qualities
• Multi-culturalist (switch between cultural
  styles)
• E-facilitator
• Recognition promoter (promotes team within
  organization)
• Internationalist
• Traveler