RUC 2003 reducing time to market using follow-the-sun techniques

IBM Software Group
IBM Software Group Rational software ®®
Click to edit Track Number on Title Master
Reducing Time to Market Using Follow-the-Sun
Techniques
Alex Cameron
EDS
Alex.Cameron@eds.com

IBM Software Group Rational softwareRational User Conference 2003
®
Presentation Overview
 Changing Times - The trend towards globalisation of
Software Development and the challenges
 Overview of a novel Concurrent Engineering method
developed by EDS (Follow-the-Sun)
 Analysing the Follow-the-Sun method
 Predicting the Benefits
 Key enablers for Follow-the-Sun
 Assessment of progress to date
 Possible next steps

®
Changing Times
 Reducing the cost of IT and meeting time-to-market demands
is driving the IT industry
 Global software development is an emerging phenomenon
and takes advantage of highly skilled off-shore resources
 Speeding up the software development process is a most
strategic issue
 Organisations are better positioned to harvest the future
growth opportunities if they:
Plan to move from sequential to concurrent
Plan to move from centralised to distributed software development (multi-
site)
Have a Global presence
Have mature processes and innovative development strategies

®
The Challenges
 There is a need to understand the challenges faced by
multi-site organisations working with stakeholders across
geographical and cultural boundaries
 The globalisation of software development in many
companies raises significant problems with respect to
supporting collaboration
 The usual problems of supporting collaboration are
compounded by the problems engendered by
geographical, temporal and cultural separation
 The way we approach this is crucial, and it is more that
just sharing code
 Development of Work Distribution Framework that
identifies specific Work Distribution patterns that can
integrate methods, tools and processes is required

®
EDS Best Shore Solution Centres
South Africa
Brazil
Mexico
New Zealand
Ireland Czech Republic
India
Egypt
Italy
Argentina
Australia
16 offshore Global Solution Centres in 13 countries – more
than 5,700 global employees dedicated to offshore delivery
Malaysia
Location of Solution Centres
Canada

IBM Software Group
What are the benefits and key factors of
Follow-the-Sun techniques?

®
The Benefits
 Multi-Site/Distributed Development
▪ Huge leverage is possible
▪ Capitalises on technical expertise and skilled resources
▪ Greater potential for Re-Use
▪ Lower cost of development
▪ Greater insight into local markets
 Follow-the-Sun Development
▪ Contraction in development schedules
▪ Higher productivity
▪ Higher quality
▪ Lower maintenance costs
 These factors contribute to
▪ Faster time to market
▪ Earlier profitability for the client

®
Key success factors
 We must leverage global resources, technology,
processes and tools
 We must find a method of reducing costs of developing
software
 We must increase effective productivity
Cost = Rate*Amount of Effort
Factor 1
Factor 2
Productivity = ProductSize/(Effort * Schedule )
Effort
essentially
unaltered

®
What is ‘Follow the Sun’ Development for EDS?
To produce the
same product
with
equal effort
in
Less Time and Less Cost
by using
Distributed Teams
and
Concurrent Processes
‘Follow the Sun’ Reduces
both Cost and Schedule
Cost is reduced by leveraging
“EDS Best Shore” concepts
Schedule is reduced by
leveraging the time zones
and virtual team concepts
and multi-site processes.

®
Sites that have participated to date since Dec 2002
 Follow the Sun – Proof of Concept project (230 FP)
▪ Site 1 – Australia(Adelaide Solution Centre)
▪ Site 2 – Egypt (Cairo Solution Centre)
▪ Site 3 –Mexico (NMx Solution Centre)
 Project 2 (590 FP)
▪ Site 1 – Australia (Adelaide Solution Centre)
▪ Site 2 – Mexico (North Mexico Solution Centre)
 Project 3 – ramping up
▪ Site 1 – Ireland (Ireland Solution Centre)
▪ Site 2 – Eqypt (Cairo Solution Centre)
▪ Site 3 – Mexico (NMx Solution Centre)
▪ Site 4 – Australia (Adelaide Solution Centre)

IBM Software Group
Analysing the method

®
Concurrent techniques that are generally used…
 Staff augmentation
 Code sharing between distributed sites
 Working on parallel features/enhancements at
distributed locations
 Working shifts within a single site in order to
achieve concurrency
 Focusing on just single process, ie Testing
 Developing the complete application using
distributed resources

®
Concurrent Software Development…methods
Centralise Concurrent
Centralised
Sequential
Distributed Concurrent
Distributed
Sequential
Parallelisation
Decentralisation

®
Developing a base system
 Decompose the problem and run core Process Workflows at
different sites and assume most workflows are concurrent
 View concurrency from a perspective of exploiting the
different time zones
▪ Team is split over multiple time zones
▪ Teams organised by specialisation/expertise
▪ Overall project team size remains much the same
 This will work if
▪ Work is focused on the core process workflow, throughout
all phases of the lifecycle
▪ Artefacts can be shared using integrated and automated
tools, e.g. Rational multi-site enabled
▪ “Design” authority is distributed and delegated

®
Conventional development life-cycle phases
Define
Analyse
and Design Produce Optimise Implement
10% 30% 25% 25% 10%
% of Schedule
5% 20% 33% 32% 10%
% of Effort
 Note: This diagram summarises the phases and does not
necessarily represent the development approach

®
Conventional life-cycle phases that can be de-coupled
Define
Analyse
and Design Produce Optimise Implement
Potential for up to 80% of the life-cycle to
be distributed
10% 30% 25% 25% 10%
5% 20% 33% 32% 10%
Client facing
activities

®
Comparison to RUP

®
Distributing and aligning sites with the core disciplines
 We define 3 types of site specialisations
▪ System Requirements and System Design site
▪ Detailed Design and Implementation site
▪ Testing Validation and Deployment site
 Each centre is located in a complementary time-zone
 We now need to develop a process that allows these three
sites to operate in a concurrent operation with respect to the
iteration and “optimally sequential” with respect to the core
process workflow
 “optimally sequential ” refers to the need for an optimum
amount of sequential activity that will allow work to get done.
This is the purpose of the complementary time-zones

®
Concurrent Software Development + Follow-the-Sun
Centralise Concurrent
Centralised
Sequential
Modified Distributed Concurrent
Distributed
Sequential
Parallelisation
Decentralisation

®
The benefit is that we should achieve a schedule gain
Define
Analyse and
Design
Implement
Test
Accept
Site 1
Site 2
Site 3
AcceptAcceptAcceptAccept
GAIN

®
Work within a single iteration
R A & D and System Design
Detailed Analysis & Design and Implementation
Deployment
Test Planning and Test Execution
Design
Authority
Solution
Centre
Implementation
Solution
Centre
Testing
Solution
Centre
Demand Driven
Products
Work on Next Iteration

®
Continuous life-cycle engineering
24 hours
R A & Design Idle Time
Test Manage Idle Time
R A & Design
Implementation Idle Time Implementation
Demand
Driven Work
Products
D
D
DD= Optimum Sequential Portion

IBM Software Group
Predicting the Benefits

®
Standard Development - Cost Model
Assume Productivity in Days per Function Point
P1 P2 P3
Project Start Project End
Nominal Productivity(NP) = P1+P2+P3 (Days/FP)
Design-Development-Test
RA & PD Acceptance

®
Enhanced Productivity – Cost Model
Assume Enhanced Productivity is possible in EPP
Assume EPP = 50% (Amount of the Life-Cycle that can overlap)
P1 EPP P3
Project
Start
Project
End
AP = NP*(1-EPP) + NP*EPP*K
Des+Dev+Test
Acceptance
Achieved Productivity (AP) is now
Compression (K) related to number of Effective Parallel Activities
RA & PD

®
Predicted outcome for a 230 FP with EPP = 0.5
One Site Two Sites Three Sites
Number of Staff (Average) 4.98 4.98 4.98
Average Example Cost 1,000 800 600
Predicted Productivity 3.48 3.48 3.48
Number of Sites 1 2 3
Enhanced Productivity Phase 0.5 0.5 0.5
Function Points 230 230 230
Effort (Man days) 800 800 800
Nominal Productivity 3.5 2.6 2.3
Relative Cost 160,723 128,578 96,434
Length of project (months) 8.5 6.4 5.7
Theoretical Gain ( Days/FP) 0 0.9 1.2
Project Attribute Value

®
Theoretical gain for different EPP values
Gain
0
0.5
1
1.5
2
2.5
3
1 2 3 4 5
Number of Sites
GaininDays/FP
EPP= 0.8 Prod Gain
EPP=0.5 Prod Gain

IBM Software Group
Fundamental enablers for Follow-the-Sun

®
Seven fundamental Follow-the-Sun enablers
1. Centres of specialisation
2. Unified development language
3. Well Defined Work Distribution Method/Process
4. Iterative, continual build and ‘Demand Driven’
techniques
5. Collaborative and Integrated tools and artifacts
6. Revised network topology
7. Shared and concurrent licensing

®
1. Fundamental enablers: Leverage specialisation
Specialisation by site will:
▪ Capitalise on technical expertise
▪ Provides a more complete or holistic view of the problem and
solution domains
▪ Review and verification of requirements are independent
▪ Separate teams of testers and developers will weed out problems
such as un-stated assumptions, ambiguities and inconsistencies.
▪ Requirements will be evaluated against common criteria that will
uncover problems
▪ Formal “sub-contract” agreement between sites creates a mind-set
of a client-service provider relationship will formalise commitments
▪ Over time, each Solution Centre will refine its Best Practices and
develop additional assets for its particular field of endeavour
▪ Achieve greater re-use within a specialised site
▪ Allow a site to achieve higher productivity and fewer defects
▪ Specialisation will drive Re-Use and greater productivity

®
2. Fundamental enablers: UML
Web Content
Creator
Business or
System
Analyst
Software
Developers
and Testers
Data
Analyst
Application Architecture
 Requirements
 Structure
 Behavior
Architect
Integrator

®
Distribution of UML models and relationship to other artefacts
Stakeholder
Scope
Use-Case
Model
Vision
Supplementary
Specification
End-User documentation
and Training Materials etc
Design Model Test Model

®
Each major workflow
describes how to
create and maintain a
particular model
There is sharing
some aspects of the
model but authority
for rests with a
particular Solution
Centre
3. Fundamental enabler - work distribution process
Design
Authority
Development
Authority
Test
Authority
Use Cases
Design for Review
Handover Application
Defects
Tests for Review
Use Cases
1
1
2
3
4
5

®
4. Fundamental enablers: Iterative development
Prototypes Architecture Functional Product
Releases Release
100%
Project Schedule
Modern
Project Profile
DevelopmentProgress
(%Coded)
Design
BreakageWaterfall
Project Profile

®
4. Fundamental enablers: Continuous Building and
Testing
 Continuous builds
find defects earlier
 Fewer development
defects
 Stimulates
“Demand driven”
development
Design &
Development
Test
Management
Design
Authority
Build 0
Build 0
Candidate
Build 0
Baseline
Build 1
Build 1
Candidate
Build 1
Baseline
Baseline Approved
Code
Baseline
Smoke
Test
System
Test
etc
Time Zone 1 Time Zone 3Time Zone 2

®
5. Fundamental enablers: Integrated tools and artefacts
Client
Design Authority
Requirements
(ReqPro)
Releases
(from CC multisite)
Design & Dev
Use Cases (XDE, CC multi-site, ReqPro)
Architecture (CC multi-site, ReqPro)
Test Management
Application builds (CC multi-site)
Handover
Defects (CQ multi-site)
’Smoke Test’ Cases (Test Manager, ReqPro)
Test results (Test Manager, ReqPro)
Recommended builds (CC multi-site)
Risks/Issues/Change Requests/Defects
(CQ multisite)
Risks/Issues/Change Requests/Defects
(CQ multi-site)
XDE Design Model
Use Cases
Automation is
achieved by using
Rational’s UCM,
ClearCase and
ClearQuest multi-site

®
5. Fundamental enablers: Collaborative Tools
Net Meeting
NetMeeting
Instant Messaging
 Helps overcome
language difficulties
 Allows faster
response times
 Less protocol eases
communications
 Improves
collaboration
 Assists “handover”
report
Jabber

®
6. Fundamental enablers: Well architected network

®
6. Fundamental enablers: A network strategy
 Topology – Acceptance of a new business model
 Bandwidth – Productivity Driven Bandwidth
 Connectivity – Standard EDS*LINK Templates
 Security – Standard Security Templates to allow Support
of Client applications
 Application Prioritisation- to reduce Bandwidth needs and
add intelligence to the network and increase efficiency
and reduce costs

®
7. Fundamental enablers: Concurrent licencing
Shared Licence model benefits
▪ Reduces cost of project and cost of providing licences
▪ Higher return on investment
▪ Increases utilisation of tools by approximately 5 times
EDS Solution
▪ Set of 3 redundant licence servers
▪ Complete suite of Rational tools available to all
▪ ClearCase is FlexLM enabled
▪ UCM Multi-site enabled

®
7. Fundamental enablers: Concurrent Tool Usage
▪ Early diagram demonstrating utilisation and
concurrency benefits
Early Rational Tool Usage Diagram
EMEA
New Zealand IndiaIndia
Australia EMEA
Americas
%ofLicences

IBM Software Group
Assessment of Progress to date

®
Assessment of Progress to date
 Lower number of defects is apparent
 Amount of re-work appears to be low
 Higher level of re-use is apparent
 Continuous builds are driving progress and confidence
 Productivity figures are matching predicted values
 Defects severity classification/rectification priority are
driven more by build milestones than functional defects
 Method was based on a strong foundation of Core EDS
Processes – this reduced the startup time and learning
phases
 Quality of documentation is very high

®
Next Steps
 Consider architectural patterns techniques to further
improve productivity
▪ For example using ‘templates’ between the developer sites to
increase the productivity and to introduce a 4th site
▪ This has the potential to introduce a further gain
 The method used to share artifacts is a key
 Use Case approach to express requirements and to
concurrently and independently produce the test cases
and the technical design, has worked extremely well
 This leads to a belief that requirements management
practices are a critical success factor
Things to be considered

®
Alex Cameron
alex.cameron@eds.com

®

RUC 2003 reducing time to market using follow-the-sun techniques

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