Cultural Challenges In Global Agile

Cultural Challenges in Global Agile Agile India Conference 2010 Raghuram Bharathan

BACKGROUND

Playground • Co-development – Different time zones – Different teams • 2 week iterations • Separate QA team • Remote Product Owner • QA inline with iteration • Common toolset

Rules of the game • Meetings – Pre-planning and Planning – Demo and Retro – Standups – Conference calls • Work – User stories – Bugs from released stories

Players • Customer team – Average 10+ years experience – Similar experience levels • Offshore team – Different experience levels - 0 to 10 – Different cultural backgrounds – Most with no agile experience

THE CHALLENGES

Why IT industry?

Why IT industry? • High-paying • Opportunities • Overseas exposure • Glamorous • Air-conditioned work, 5 day week

Education System • Theoretical focus – Civics and civic sense – Learn about road rules but not follow – System of Government – Less importance to games and sports • How many of us can fix a leaking tap, build a book shelf

Programming • Focus on quantity – number of languages • Learn through a set of programs – Sort a list of numbers – Binary search – Matrix multiplication – Doubly linked list

Data Structure Complexity

Programming • Less focus on design and implementation – Performance, scalability and reliability – Testability – Coding standards – Best practices of programming

How it affects • Doing it right the first time • Test First/ Test Driven Development • Writing clean code (free of violations)

IT/Service Mindset • Somehow solve a problem • Means are not important or relevant • Deadline driven • Quantity rather than quality • Applicable for only one situation

Contrasting Product Mindset • Hardware, OS, browser independence • Design for change • Logging • Installation and deployment strategy • Upgrade strategy • Service packs and hotfixes

How it affects • Designing for change • Thinking beyond specific problem • Looking at the bigger picture

Distractions at work • Flexible working hours • Getting to office – traffic jams • Breakfast and coffee breaks • Phone calls • Personal mails and social network • Friends at work • Hobbies and recreations – lack of

How it affects • Sticking to estimated time • Working to compensate for lost time • Dependant team members and delays • Dependant groups – QA, schedule

Hierarchy • Parents at home – School – College – Job – Marriage • Teachers at school/college • Supervisors at work – Tell me what to do and by when

How it affects • Commitment • Estimation • Ownership • Proactiveness

Resume fattening • Number of different technologies • Number of projects • Jack of all arts – Master of none? • Superficial/Shallow knowledge • Disinterest in specialization

How it affects • Working in a time-boxed environment – Sticking to estimates – Overcoming technical challenges – Writing optimized code – Using appropriate library features

Reporting Impediments • Cultural influence – left hand stigma – fear of punishment • Self-conscious • Linking to appraisal • Non-technical Manager

Retrospective participation • Cultural influence • Why raise the barrier? – Stoic and self-content – Why upset the apple- • Skirt around sensitive cart? topics • Set a goal – meet or – People, ability, exceed aptitude

Collaboration • Talking vs discussion • Divide and conquer vs independence • Me, mine, myself vs us, ours • Blame game • Taking feedbacks personally

Communication • Cultural influence – English as foreign language – Mother tongue influence • Trouble with accent • What I said and what I mean • Verbal and written

Holidays • Cultural influence – Away from family – Going home for festivals • Multitude of festivals • Regional and religious • 2 week iterations and holidays

Unlearning • Happy with status quo – resistance to change • Unaware of doing mistakes • Difficulty in correcting • Importance of learning it right the first time

Tools of trade

Prayer Programming

Pat on the back

OVERCOMING CHALLENGES

Self-driven teams • Who should bell the cat? • Why me? • What is in it for me? • Harder I work, the more work I get • Peer pressure

Chief Programmer model • Create specializations amongst team members • Break stories into tasks – Specialized team member picks tasks • Less self-driven and more ability-driven • Leads as Chief Programmers – interact with customer – coach and mentor team

Tool-driven approach • Minimize the human factor • Tools – to flag style violations – to identify lack of code coverage – to flag incorrect coding practices – to run for each check-in and identify issues at the earliest – consistent across local and remote teams

Overcoming distractions • Core business hours • Blocking of social networking at work • Co-location – low cubicle walls • Manager co-located with team

Tracking • Variant of Pomodoro technique – pre-lunch and post-lunch (3 hour slots) • Stand ups before start of work and post-lunch • Individual follow-ups and reminders • Proxy updates

Communication Channels • Multiple channels – Wiki, Issue tracking system, email, instant messaging – Regular teleconferences – Large whiteboard with visible status

Pigs and Chickens • Be transparent • Track through tools • Try to help • Shield from distraction

* of the iteration

Summary • Agile is here to stay • Brings issues to surface rapidly • Focuses on continuous improvement • Need to work hard to stay afloat • Survival of the fittest

Maharaja’s College, Ernakulam http://maruhgar.blogspot.com raghuram.bharathan@yahoo.com

Cultural Challenges In Global Agile

by Naresh Jain on Jan 28, 2010

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