SLIDE 1 Quality Indicators on Global Software Development Projects: Does “Getting to Know You” Really Matter? Olly Gotel, Vidya Kulkarni, Moniphal Say, Christelle Scharff, Thanwadee Sunetnanta
ICGSE 2009
SLIDE 2 Context
- 5 universities, 4 countries, 7 sites
- 3 prior years of collaboration
- Attention to socialization ... but does it pay off?
SLIDE 3
Assumption 1
Global Software Development teams who get to know a little about those they are working with will communicate more effectively with them
SLIDE 4 Assumption 2
In a Global Software Development context,
- ne of the leading indicators of a quality
software product is likely to be effective team communication
SLIDE 5 Globalization Software Engineering
INDIA THAILAND CAMBODIA US NYC Campus US Pleasantville Campus US Global Bank in NYC
Technology Socialization Competition
4th Year - 2008
SLIDE 6 Globalization Software Engineering
CAMBODIA Institute of Technology of Cambodia INDIA University
THAILAND Mahidol University CAMBODIA Royal University
US Pace University NYC Campus US Pace University Pleasantville Campus US Students and IT Professionals (Global Bank in NYC) 12 hours 9.5 hours 2.5 hours
Technology Socialization Competition
4th Year - 2008
SLIDE 7
SLIDE 8 What We Did to Explore Assumptions: Socialization, Communication, Quality
- 2 exercises:
- Country awareness - one month in
- Extended team awareness - ten weeks in
- Tracked communications
- Measured quality of software products
SLIDE 9 Map Exercise
- Label NY, Phnom Penh, New Delhi and Bangkok
- Select the flag, label and attach
- Label the dishes, landmarks and attach
- 2:00pm in Cambodia, time in the other countries?
SLIDE 10
It’s 2:00 am in the US
New York Statue of Liberty Burger and fries
SLIDE 11
It’s 12:30pm in India
Samosas Taj Mahal New Delhi
SLIDE 12
It’s also 2:00pm in Thailand
Bangkok Royal Palace Pad Thai
SLIDE 13
Cambodia
Amok Angkor Wat Phnom Penh
SLIDE 14
How Did They Do?
SLIDE 15
How Did They Do?
Great Poor! Good Weak OK
SLIDE 16
How Did They Do?
Experimental Control
SLIDE 17 Comments
- Fun!
- Some strange positionings
- Each team knew their own time zone
difference
- Socialization team had Cambodian
knowledge
- Some had really taken the time to learn
SLIDE 18 Faces Exercise
- Circle and name your extended team, e.g.:
- The other developers on your team, your
coach, the client sponsoring your project and your auditors
- Circle and name anyone else you can
SLIDE 19
Developer Awareness
Recognized and named ENTIRE extended team
SLIDE 20
Client Awareness
Client sponsors who know their teams
SLIDE 21
Auditor Awareness
Auditors who know their team
SLIDE 22
Developer Coach Awareness
Thai developer coach really knew her team
SLIDE 23
Client Coach Awareness
Indian client coach really knew his team
SLIDE 24 Comments
- More fun!
- Different profiles
- Cambodian, Indian and Thai
development teams had the most extended team awareness, and clients knew them best too (+ PLV)
- Thai and Indian development teams had
a closely knit support network
SLIDE 25 Communications Log
- Asynchronous
- Developers sent
emails to each
the most
correlates with eventual quality ranking
SLIDE 26 Communications Log
chatted with each other, their client and their coach the most
correlates with eventual quality ranking
SLIDE 27 Quality Assessment
- Satisfaction of requirements (high, medium,
low priority and weighted)
assessors - Cambodian clients and their coaches rank products
manager - process
- Each aspect triangulated and aggregated
SLIDE 28 Observations (i)
- 2 teams judged best on quality communicated
the most (twice as frequent / as long)
- Of these:
- One scored best on the map exercise and the
- ther performed well
- They had the best knowledge of their extended
team members
- They were the teams most likely to seek help
from their support networks
- The clients ‘preferred’ to respond to queries
from these teams
SLIDE 29 Observations (ii)
- The team we invested socialization
activities in did not score so well on quality...
- They scored well on the map exercise, but
ONLY with respect to Cambodia
- Their extended team awareness was
marginally better than the control group
- They experienced increased workload and
communicated with their extended team (including clients) the least
SLIDE 30 Implications
- “Getting to know you” matters, but if you
try to enforce it, it is perceived as an
- verhead and seems to detract from the
communication that is essential to the primary task
- Keen, motivated people do this naturally
as a pre-requisite for the job ... and that is when it appears to pay off
- Training programs need to find a way to
nurture these pre-dispositions, but with care and in an integrated way
SLIDE 31 Caveat
- One study -- done to create some light relief
for all!
- Other factors obviously impact quality
- But, it is curious that those who
communicated more knew more about those on either side of the communication, and they produced the highest quality software in our study
- It is probably worth paying more subtle
attention to... and more empirical study
SLIDE 32
For More Information...
http://atlantis.seidenberg.pace.edu/wiki/gsd2008
SLIDE 33 Thanks
- Supported by a National Collegiate
Inventors and Innovators Alliance grant (#3465-06) -- “Incubating the Next Generation of Global Software Development Entrepreneurs” -- (2006-2008) and a Campus Second Life scholarship
- We thank all the 159 students who have
been involved to date and ITC faculty
SLIDE 34 Quality Indicators on Global Software Development Projects: Does “Getting to Know You” Really Matter? Olly Gotel, Vidya Kulkarni, Moniphal Say, Christelle Scharff, Thanwadee Sunetnanta
ICGSE 2009
