The six Centripetal Forces For Successful Global Software Teams  Telecommunications Infrastructure  Product Architecture  Team Building  Development Methodology  Management Techniques  Collaboration Technologies

Telecommunications Infrastructure  Telecomm Infrastructure Analogous to the foundation of a house A global software team requires a  Reliable network  High bandwidth network

Telecommunications Infrastructure  Invest in reliable, high bandwidth connections to all desktops at all sites  Establish consistent hardware and software platforms  Excellent telecommunications infrastructure does not negate the need for travel.

Collaborative technologies  Collaborative technologies promises to collapse distance and bring us closer to our colleague far away.  Team wall  Well run dispersed team will be using types of collaborative technology all at once. Place Time Same Different Video-conference Audio-conference E-chart E-whiteboard Voic Video-mail Groupware platform Calendar/schedule Discussion list meetingware Generic Collaborative technology

 Formal and Informal Communications Formal: help mitigate the inevitable communication breakdown that occur as a result of distance and culture Informal: collaborative technology needs to emulate the co- located work environment as much as possible, with its informal mechanisms for resolving problems (finding, sorting, processing, and retrieving the information that members need to solve a problem)  Research Result of a study on developers 2/3 of all messages were quite brief – less than 5 minutes Each day, on average, each developer sent 6 messages and received 16. Conclusion:  For developers, coordination and knowledge sharing is conducted by informal lateral networks  For dispersed team there is a need to encourage a great deal of informal communications Collaborative technologies

 Collaborative Technology supports Deliberation and Workflow: Deliberation: The classic problem-solving activities of identifying the problem, evaluating the solutions, selecting a desired plan, and monitoring its implementation. Workflow: routing objects from one person to another in need of work, review, or authorization. Collaborative Technologies

 Objectives of “Generic” Collaborative Technology 1. Serves as a team memory & knowledge center  The team store and shares information and knowledge across a work unit 2. Provides each team member a 360 view  All members at all sites are informed regarding task, status, people, and other dynamic team information (transparency) 3. Forster a sense of community  The “glue” creates and maintains interpersonal relationships Collaborative technologies

Collaborative Technologies  Selected Collaborative Technologies and Their Use  Is the most important collaborate technology  “when we had trouble with we went insane”  Phone to use ration 1:20 Time zone differences Developers are comfortable with is part of the professional culture in where in the world Help to understand language differences Facilitates lateral communication – communications that does not go through a formal chain of authority.

Collaborative Technologies  Groupware Platforms , Document repositories, discussion lists, Calendars, and Workflow automation. The industry leader is Lotus Notes  Group Calendar/ Group Scheduler An excellent tool to inform dispersed team members of different holidays, milestones, events, and meetings. Time zones differences, different work hours, and summertime clock changes.  Discussion Lists  Audio-conferencing  Electronic Whiteboard

Collaborative Technologies  Video-conferencing Promises  To reduce the need for travel  Accelerate the process of reaching decisions  Reduces development cycles by accelerating problem resolution  Promote creative thinking  Foster bounding between people and building the sense of teamness Limitation  Technical limitations  Cost issues  Quality problems  Synchronicity issues (same time)  Behavioral norms  Are collaborative technologies culturally neutral?

 Cultural Overlay of Collaborative Technology In High-context Cultures  Much of the communication is outside the body of the message – in greeting style, gestures, posture, etc  Forces users toward a high information mode in their message, away from the ambiguous contextual cues  The most culturally neutral collaborative technology is even then it is not neutral.  Example American and Scandinavian decision making norms vs. Decision making in Japan Collaborative Technologies

 Objectives 1. Serves as a team memory & knowledge center  The team store and shares information and knowledge across a work unit 2. Provides each team member a 360 view  All members at all sites are informed regarding task, status, people, and other dynamic team information (transparency) 3. Reduces duplication of effort  Software engineers need to share many types of project knowledge, otherwise they may end up fixing the same bug or working on software components that are out of date as result of others’ work. 4. Supports coordination activities and workflow  Need to support team members self-managing tasks via electronic lateral coordination and via electronic workflow procedures. Support Quality Assurance  Bug tracking, version control, requirement tracking, are essential to maintaining quality level. Collaborative Technologies to Support Software Engineering CT-SE

 CT-SE Functions Software configuration management (SCM)  As a control and enforcement mechanism, it establishes formalism: used to control processes, set the rules, and structure the workflow within a team  As a coordination mechanism, it is an effective way to create up-front dialogue among the dispersed sites. Project status Notification services Project scheduling and tasking CASE and process management Programming tools Bugs and change tracking Team memory and knowledge center Collaborative Technologies to Support Software Engineering CT-SE