1. 1 Chapter 18 Global Software Teams: The Problem and the Solution

2. 2 Basic Issues in Chapter 18  Software development is complicated by being dispersed across national boundaries  Projects are driven by economics, strategy and management that produce global teams  Technology both drives as well as enables global team practice

3. 3 What Makes These Teams SO Hard to Manage?  Is it something about IT? Volatile, complicated, culturally specific?  Is it something about IT people? Challenge oriented, uncommunicative, mobile, unconnected to firm?  Is it something about IT’s role in organizations? Unclear, underresourced, unrepresented, not included in planning, high stress?

4. 4 How Do These Situations Arise?  Can RISK ANALYSIS help here? A=P(bad things happening) What bad things can occur? B=P(bad things have bad outcomes) What are the implications of these events? C=Cost of bad outcomes What costs must we bear for disruption and recovery?  Cost=A*B*C

5. 5 Bad Things  Team disintegrates  Team management loses control  Team produces awful products  Team cannot sustain products  Team creates sustaining problems  Team destroys client Team cannot function; software cannot be produced at all All aspects of team production become uncertain. Upper management/client lose trust in team Quality is hard to guarantee when team isn’t functioning coherently Team doesn’t have any long-term presence and hence cannot maintain products Product produces problems “forever” or “odor” of project experience lingers beyond project Product or project experience is so bad that client cannot function

6. 6 Push-Pull  Forces Countering Global Teamwork Mostly due to distance Also culture Result makes it harder to manage team, ensure quality, keep to design promises  Forces Empowering Global Teamwork Mostly assisted by technology Also good management practice on a global basis Leadership is important

7. 7 ` Disintegration Global Software Teams Cohesion Loss of Control Culture Clash Federation of Units Coord’n Breakdown Comm’n Poverty Telcoms Infrastructure Collaorative Technology Leadership Product Characteristics Team Building Software Dev. Method’y

8. 8 Group Life Cycle Group Effectiveness Time, Investment Forming Storming Performing Norming Putting the group together, learning about function Adjusting to one another’s styles, determining diff’s Developing agreed rules for process to meet goals Actually getting business done effectively

9. 9 Global Software Teams -- Advice Encourage lateral communication and coordination Be more formal, yet more informal, too Give everyone a 360 o view Establish trust early in the project and foster it throughout Establish a team memory Be aware of culture and language Items in red are especially important in global software teams

10. 10 Global Software Teams – Critique of Advice  Communication Structure techniques tend to be labor intensive and expensive where technology is involved  Formal/informal is important, but very difficult to do in practice  360-degree view is OK, but events move faster than your planning and intentions.

11. 11 Global Software Teams – Critique of Advice - 2  Trust is hard to build, especially across cultures, and requires personal commitment, travel, presence, risk sharing  Team memory is good idea  Culture is a real problem and not easily dismissed or taken into account.