The Software Engineering Impacts of Cultural Factors on Multi-cultural Software Development Teams. By Greg Borchers 25th International Conference on Software Engineering, 2003 p540-548 Poster by: Olman Hern

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The Software Engineering Impacts of Cultural
Factors on Multi-cultural Software Development
Teams.ByGreg Borchers25th International
Conference on Software Engineering, 2003
p540-548Poster byOlman Hernández
January 17th, 2005
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Executive Summary

• Paper describes the observations of how some
  cultural factors impacted the software
  engineering practices implemented on a global
  development project.
• Cultural factors utilized in the paper are
  defined by Geert Hofstede in his book Cultures
  Consequences.
• Power Distance Index
• Uncertainty Avoidance Index
• Individualism Index
• Author recognizes that rigorous software
  processes CANNOT overcome the power of the
  cultural layer.
• The overall recommendations are
• To be culturally aware
• Adapt and adjust the expectations to the
  realities of cultural impacts

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Introduction

• Study is based on 2 separate development projects
  over a 4 year span
• Project team was globally dispersed
• Japan Parent Company
• US Research Lab leading the projects
• India Development groups both internally and
  external vendor
• Author served as technical lead and PM roles in
  different phases on both projects
• Based on the work of Geert Hofstede
• Industrial Psychologist at IBM
• Study based on data from over 100,000 surveys in
  40 countries
• Looks at attitude of people towards their jobs
  along numerous dimensions of culture
• Dimensions expressed in terms of indexes

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Power Distance (PDI)

• India 77 Japan 54 U.S.A 40
• Identifies the way in which people think about
  equality and relationships with superiors and
  subordinates.
• Low values of PDI - there is little or no
  distinction among hierarchy of an organization.
  Individuals are almost expected to raise concerns
  and express their own opinion
• High values of PDI - the boss has great authority
  over subordinates. Superiors issue directives
  and expect subordinates to follow
• This becomes an issue when utilizing a management
  approach team of respected peers where push
  back on issues is expected
• Conflict about expectations of leadership
• Recommendation software project leadership be
  dispersed and each location have their local
  leaders

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Uncertainty Avoidance (UAI)

• Japan 92 U.S.A 46 India 40
• Explores peoples attitudes towards tolerance for
  uncertainty about the future, risky situations,
  ambiguity, and control.
• Low index culture are more risk takers, embrace
  change, more accepting of new ideas
• High index culture try to reduce uncertainty
  through coping mechanisms like rigorous adherence
  to waterfall model, restrictive change control,
  wider consensus, and elaborate process to
  contemplate all possibilities.
• Impacted design, analysis, documentation,
  up-front planning, project management and
  tracking
• Recommendation help avoid uncertainty through
  the use of prototyping utilize detailed tracking
  and reporting mechanisms

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Individualism (IDV)

• U.S.A 91 India 48 Japan 46
• Focus on the perception of individualism versus
  collectivist.
• Low index cultures - the welfare of the group is
  above the individual
• High index cultures - people are primarily
  concerned about personal achievement, ambition,
  expect to have their own opinions
• Influence the formation and continuance of teams.
  
• Impacts the ability to form strong bonds among
  members and act cohesively, creates Star
  performers
• Single out an individual performance may have big
  impact on team depending on the index.
• Recommendation Be aware of cultural differences
  during performances reviews

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Areas impacted by culture

• Software Architecture
• May be culturally influenced
• Design approach varies
• Example on how abstractions are chosen
• Configuration Management
• Value on having centralized configuration
  management with public announcements.
• Work structure can be defined by boundaries but
  will become issue when type of work crosses these
  boundaries like in performance tuning, bug
  fixing, integration.

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Paper Critique

• Strength
• - Recognition that there is a cultural factor
  that impacts development projects
• - Recommendations are valuable and should be
  explored
• - The author is not trying to stereotype
  individuals
• Weaknesses
• - Lack of description of the behaviors and
  problems confronted in order to validate the
  conclusions
• - Author seems to ignore other factors such as
  communication, organizational culture, team
  culture, and professional culture
• -Problem can also be cause by different levels
  of Process Maturity across sites and
  organizations

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Questions

• 1-Briefly define the 3 cultural factors described
  on the paper?
• 2-What are some of the areas impacted by the
  cultural factors?
• 3-Do cultural differences affect software
  professionals?