Globalization, Systems
Development and Virtual Teams
Sundeep Sahay
Globalization Context
• Why different?
• Differences of time, space, culture,
organizations and national boundaries
• New technologies, tools and methodologies
• Intensification of interactions - speed of
response
• New markets, products and lifestyles
Trends in Software Development
• Two trends in software development:
– spread of development to
“emerging”/developing nations
– move from co-located to distributed
development
Why Global Software Teams
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Search for specialized talent
Programming talent is very variable
Acquisitions and mergers
Reducing development costs
Establishing global presence
Reducing time to market
Proximity to customers
Some Macro Trends
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Outsourcing locally
Eighties - “body-shopping”
Nineties - off-shore” centers
Balance between off-shore and on-site
“Near-shore” programming
“Reverse globalization” trends
Global Industry Dynamics
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The American vulnerability
Germany’s “green-card” scheme
Norwegian initiative
The East-Asian markets
The Chinese entry
Movements up the value-chain
Implications
• Whether we like it or not….
• Need a shift in attitudes to deal with the
new global context
• A give-and-take and mutual learning
• New notions of what means a “community”
or a “team” or a “project”
Implications for Systems
Development Approaches
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Earlier approaches for co-located settings
New complexities
Notion of participation is different
New kinds of risks
The “lifecycle” is different
Requirements are different
Communication processes are different
Different Organizational
Arrangements
• Virtual teams - one extreme
• HISP example - another extreme
• GSO work - in-between
Virtual Team: Some Definitions
• It is an enterprise that can marshal more
resources than it currently has on its own,
using collaborations both inside and outside
its boundary.
• It is the use of technology to execute a wide
array of temporary alliances with others in
order to grasp market opportunities
Some more definitions
• It is a collection of management theories
ranging from just-in-time production to lean
manufacturing and trust
• It is a network or loose coalition of
manufacturing and administrative services
uniting for a specific business purpose,
disassembling when the purpose has been
met.
Virtual Corporation
• A virtual corporation is a temporary
network of independent companies suppliers, customers, even rivals - linked by
IT to share skills, costs and access to one
another’s markets. It will have neither
central office nor organization chart. It will
have no hierarchy, no vertical integration
Virtual as metaphor
• Virtual - almost, even if not exactly or in
every way”
• Give the sense that you have more than you
possess (example, virtual memory)
• Illusion of existing at any time and place
they need
Metaphor
• Virtual organization as platform
(architectural aspects)
• Virtual organization is in space (what you
do and not where you do)
• Virtual organization is a community (trust
to make it work)
• Virtual organization is bits
• Virtual organization is a network
Implications
• Virtual organization
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as a technology
a coalition
a network
temporary alliance
set for executing a specific business purpose
scientific management practices
to deal with competitive pressures
Why Virtual Teams
• Switching of resources
• Strategic alliances - gaining access to new
markets, technologies, products
• Core competencies
• Organizational restructuring
Critique - Trust
• Counterintuitive - in the age of competition
and mistrust, people will work based on
trust
• Need physical cues to validate trust in
computer-mediated-communications
• Time required to build trust
• Shared understanding required to build trust
Critique: Whole and Parts
• 2+2 sometimes not 5
• Knowledge (lack of) of the whole
• Sometimes, a person functions well because
of the situation he/she is in
• Competence - a complex aggregate
• Assumption of goal acceptance
• Changes in personal and social skills
Critique: Knowledge and
Language
• Where is knowledge embedded?
• Tacit knowledge
• Being in the world
Complexity Characteristics
• Teams come together with few shared
norms - stocks of knowledge
• Dealing with separation of time, space and
culture
• Communication challenges
• Relationship building
• Technological challenges
Stocks of Knowledge
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Understanding what they are
Communicating backgrounds, expectations
Establishing clarity in understanding
Building and aligning these stocks of
knowledge
Time, Space and Culture
• All inter-related related
• Coordination of time differences
• Showing sensitivity and empathy to
differences
• Norms are not stable
• Developing hybridized approaches
Communication Challenges
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Central to the process
Clarity
Balance between efficiency and empathy
Private versus public spaces
Overload versus silence
Language
Styles of communication
Relationship Building
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Speed
Trust - swift trust
Dealing with breakdowns
Efficiency and compassion - “third way”
Sharing information
Local versus global - the question of
identity
Technological Challenges
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New technologies
Multiple technologies
Complex infrastructure
Establishing norms of use amongst changes
Differences across teams
Time to adapt