Across the hall / Across Across the hall / Across the Globe Project the Globe Project

Management:Management:Challenges for globally Challenges for globally

distributed teamsdistributed teams

Vikas Sehgalvsehgal@projistics.com

ProjisticsSan Jose, CA

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Gartner says……… By 2004 60% of professional and management tasks at Global

1000 companies will be by virtual teams.

By 2003 50% of virtual teams will fail to meet strategic / operational objectives.

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Why distributed teams? Challenges Risks Possible approach Case study – Lexware / Intuit

Agenda

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Vikas Sehgal 10 years experience working in distributed teams

Co-Founded Nagarro – an offshore software services company

Co-Founder and President of Projistics – a software suite of tools for managing project lifecycle.

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Why distributed teams Cost saving

Availability of talent

Mergers and acquisitions

Projects span across company boundaries (ex: Projects with remote partners or customers)

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What you loose Ad-hoc meetings Water cooler discussions Radio corridor Whiteboard Socializing

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Challenges Distance Communication costs Connectivity Reduced face-to-face interaction Different time zones Cultural Language

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Project Risks Inaccurate progress tracking

Team conflict – more personal than professional

Lack of trust

Technology and tools to choose

Security / IPR

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More Project Risks Creating a shared sense of purpose / goal / team spirit

Build vision through leadership

Sense of community / identity

Cannot get emotional tone in communications

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Case Study – Lexware / Intuit Project Objective: Help Lexware develop the German version of

QuickBooks

Locations:– San Jose, CA– Edmonton, Canada– Freiburg, Germany– New Delhi, India

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Lexware - challenges Quickbooks source code – more than 2 GB

Language – German variables, comments

Time zone – working across 4 different time zones

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Communication Define your communication channels

Define frequency of communication

Maintain minutes of the meetings, action item lists, red flags

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Intuit,Canada Lexware, Germany Nagarro, Germany Nagarro,India

UK-Canada codebase UK-Canada codebase + Ger/Aus codebase

Domain knowledge transfer: Ger/Aus tax systems, Euro rules, VAT

Requirements USD

Code update / sync baselines

Initial/basic functional queriesDay-to-day functional queriesRequirements

Development

Bugs, QA

Day-to-day technical queriesEscalated technical queries Day-to-day technical queries

Bug assignment

Patches/bug fixes

Weekly status updates

Billing,Satisfaction

Test plans

Test plan review

Test results

Timesheets

Issue resolution, escalation

QuickBooks 2003 (released July, 2002)

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Time zone The nightmare of scheduling a conference call with people in

four different time zones.

Overlapping workdays

Collaborative time is reduced by a union of holidays

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Business Processes

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Micromanage Locally Don’t even try to micro-manage remotely

Distributed teams need distributed project management

Single, responsible point of contact at each location

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Share Knowledge Build knowledge repositories

Make them easily available

Make sure everyone contributes

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IM Instant communication – saves time

Faster than email

Less intrusive than phone

IM and security – enterprise IM solutions

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Intranet/Extranet/EverythingNet Browser is king

All information available through Intranet / Extranet

Firewall issues / VPN / Security

Knowledge bases accessible through the Intranet

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Project Methodology Choose the methodology wisely

Waterfall – good for large projects with well-defined goals

Rapid prototyping (Evolutionary Lifecycle) – good for rapidly changing requirements

Spiral – good for risk minimization

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Manage Change Define policies / procedures to manage change

Document every change

Evaluate change and define impact of the change and configuration items affected

Approval and workflow process

Automatic task creation and linked back to change

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Risk Management and Mitigation What Risk ???

Identify risks early on in the project

Devise mitigation plans

Review risks during the project based on current state of project

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Deliverable Management Use a result oriented approach

Identify clearly definable and verifiable deliverables

Communicate deadline slippages well in advance

Document everything

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Tools Use integrated solutions

– Workflow for business process automation– Task management and prioritization– Change Management– Risk Management– Issue tracking and automatic routing– Customizable– Delegated administration

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Questions?

Across the hall / Across the Globe Project Management:Challenges for globally distributed teams

Vikas Sehgalvsehgal@projistics.com

ProjisticsSan Jose, CA