MIS 648 Lecture 121 MIS 648 Presentation Notes: Lecture 12 Meeting the Challenges of Developing Systems Internationally

MIS 648 Lecture 12 1

MIS 648 Presentation Notes: Lecture 12

Meeting the Challenges of Developing Systems

Internationally


AGENDA

Introduction to the lecture Goal of the Lecture Global Software Teams, revisited Culture and IS Development Decisions

(Heales, et al.)


Basic Issues

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


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?


Our Basic Model of IT Project Management Success

InformationTechnology

Characteristics


WorkerCharacteristics

InformationTechnologyWork Env’t

Characteristics


TaskCharacteristics


Org’lCharacteristics

IT Project Outcomes


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 projectProduct or project experience is so bad that client cannot

function


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


`

Dis

inte

grat

ion

Global Software Teams

Cohesion

Loss

of Contro

l

Cultu

re C

lash

Federa

tion o

f U

nit

s

Coord’n

Breakdown

Comm’n Poverty

Telcoms Infrastructure

Collaorative T

echnologyL

eadership

Pro

duct

Cha

ract

eris

tics

Team

Build

ing

Software Dev. M

ethod’y

Source: Erran Carnel: Global Software Teams: A Framework for Managerial Problems and Solutions, 2002.


Group Life Cycle RevisitedG

roup

Eff

ectiv

enes

s

Time, Investment

Forming

Storming

Performing

Norming

Staffing, instructing the group

Negotiating who does what, how,

when

Working out the development rules,

refining them

Developing and delivering software


Global Software Teams -- Advice

Encourage lateral communication and coordination

Be more formal, yet more informal, too

Give everyone a 360o 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


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.


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.


Now, Add in Culture

Global software development teams are generally cross-cultural

This includes offshoring activities, too (see next lectures)

Globalization is only exacerbating potential and actual problems.

Heales, et al examine the effects of national culture on IS development decisions rather than on development itself.


Culture in this Research

Organizational culture affects organizational decisions

National culture affects organizational culture.

Hofstede is abandoned for GLOBE (which is based on Hofstede) because of vagueness problems but does not address the stereotyping problems.


The GLOBE Dimensions

Power Distance (=Hofstede) Uncertainty Avoidance (=Hofstede) Institutional Collectivism (cf. Individ’ism) Family Collectivism (cf. Individ’ism) Humane Orientation (cf. Masculinity) Performance Orientation Future Orientation (=later Hofstede) Gender Egalitarianism (cf. Masculinity) Assertiveness (=Masculinity)

These two meet some of the problems

with Individualism

These two meet some

of the problems

with Masculinity


Adaptive Maintenance Changes

Research looks at decision making with regard to evolution of system in terms of either enhancement (addition, improvement) or redevelopment (replacement)

Because culture affects decision making, it should also affect adaptive maintenance decision making as well as the level at which decision making is performed.


The Basic Model

PDistanceUAvoidanceFutureOrientInstitutColl’mFamilyColl’mHumaneOrienPerfomOrienGenderEgal

Assert

EnhancementDecision

RedevelopmentDecison

-

All influences are + unless otherwise noted.

Executive Level

Decision

IssueResolutionProcess


Research Method

Data on 1238 projects worldwide from 2000 was used; 421 were eliminated because not all GLOBE dimensions were available.

N=817 Used “What is” rather than “what should

be” indicators of the GLOBE form It appears that the bulk of the data

comes from English-speaking countries.


Analysis

Stepwise multiple regression was used Few of the relationships were found to

be strong There was significant correlation of

dimensions


The Results

PDistanceUAvoidanceFutureOrientInstitutColl’mFamilyColl’mHumaneOrienPerfomOrienGenderEgal

Assert

EnhancementDecision


All influences are + unless otherwise noted.

Executive Level

Decision



The Results

FutureOrient

InstitutColl’m

GenderEgal

Assert

EnhancementDecision


Executive Level

Decision


FO<US: ItalyGE<US: India

AS<US: JapanIC<US: Italy


So What?

How does this differ from how any team functions in today’s globalized economy?

What does the task add to the situation? What does IT culture add to the

situation? What does the work environment add to

the situation?

Documents

MIS 648 Lecture 121 MIS 648 Presentation Notes: Lecture 12 Meeting the Challenges of Developing Systems Internationally