Archive for the ‘Virtual Teams’ Category

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Business expertise versus technical skills!

Tuesday, May 24th, 2011

In talking with a group of product managers recently about working with distributed software development teams, where part of the team was in the US and part of the team was in an offshore location, there seemed to be a big consensus that one of the most difficult issues in working with the offshore team was getting them to understand the “business side” of the system.  For example one person was very vocal about the issues with the developers in the offshore location not always understanding why the payment system needed to work in a particular way, or why the users needed to work in a certain way.  Other examples came up with billing systems and with the developers not understanding why sales commission had to be calculated in a certain way. This got me to thinking as to why this could be occurring?

According to the group of product managers the reason was specifically based on the fact that we are exposed to “how certain things” work more often in the US than in some of the offshore locations.  I agree this can be a factor with understand such things as “calculating sales commission”. Well at least the basics of calculating sales commissions, because as many people know there are many many ways to calculate sales commissions. It can greatly vary by company. So any developer would need to know what is the algorithm/s used by the company. 

After thinking about this question for a while, I started to think about how many companies search for outsourcing partners. A top priority for many companies is technical skills, which of course are very important when choosing who to work with. But I think sometimes technical skills are given a higher priority than if the outsourcing partner has related business or experience with your vertical market.  For example if your company is in the payments space, working with an outsourcing partner which has experience in that space will go a long way towards helping to overcome issues with understanding how the system has to work. Many companies when they start to look for a partner, are thinking, well we have the domain expertise, we are the experts, which is definitely true, and we can help pass that expertise on to anyone that we work with.  What we don’t have is enough technical skills.  If a company makes a concerted effort to pass on the needed domain expertise then the combination of your side having the domain expertise and the vendor having the technical skills, can work. However, in a distributed environment, passing on the domain expertise will take more effort, and it is easy for it to fall by the way side. It seems to make sense then to give, if not equal weight to both business domain expertise and technical expertise, then at least put business domain expertise in a close second place, when choosing a partner to work with your firm on software development.

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I have a dream! Or at least an idea!

Thursday, April 21st, 2011

Question:  I have an idea for a new business, and I need a software application built to provide my new service, but we need to move fast.  Can we really build this  with a remote software development team?  Especially a software development team in Ukraine?

Answer:  Today VC’s would tell you that you should be able to get all the talent you need locally. That may be the case depending on what type of skills you need, and it certainly will really help if you have received a very good sum of investment.  However, for most would be entrepreneurs this is not the case, so are they out of luck if they can’t find the help they need locally?

Indeed they are not out of luck!  It is very possible to build a new company using a remote team and have your software application built by people working in Oregon, or South Africa or Ukraine, or anywhere else around the world. What is needed most is the willingness to make it work; on the part of the entrepreneur and on the side of the company or persons who are building the software application. Is everyone on board with making it a success.   

To get started:  When you are looking to bring your idea to fruition, in the early stage you, as the entrepreneur, may be in need of a version of your software to give potential investors a chance to get excited about the app, or to get potential clients onboard as early adopters (and earlier payers!). In other words you may need a prototype showing just enough to get the target audience interested. At this point you can work with a company or persons  who can help you to determine what is that minimum you need to show, and how it can be done quickly so you can get on your way.  This type of collaboration can certainly be done online, via tools and even what may seem outmoded to some…..the telephone (or whatever voice communication tool you may like to use). The important thing to remember is that a prototype is not everything that you want to put in your product, it is those key items that you need to show only. The key functions also do not have to “fully” work.  Many functions can be “forced” to work in the background and just give the appearance of working. Why fully develop alot of features only to find out they are not really what potential clients will want. 

With your prototype you can then receive validation by potential customers and users and certainly alot of feedback about what they would like to see in the product, and hopefully signed contracts or agreements to buy as well! At this point you may also be talking with investors who will need technical details about how your final application will be built, the cost to support and how it will be supported when the full version is up and running.  You may also have potential clients who need this type of reassurance as well. Your partner company or persons building your application can certainly provide this type of support no matter where they are in the world. Hopping on a conference call as needed. 

With hard work by the entrepreneur and the remote person/s working with him or her, and a bit of luck that every entrepreneur needs, after validation potential clients and investors you can work with your remote team, which is now experienced with your idea and its direction, to build your alpha version and the beta versions of your product.

Summary: 

1.  Remember the most important aspect to making it work as an entrepreneur with a remote software development team, is the desire to make it work! 

2.  Pick a team or persons who are used to working remotely, used to working with entrepreneurs and can help you to decide what needs to go in to a prototype, what can be put off until an alpha version, etc. Then ongoing what do you need to support your application during the various stages of company development.

Posted in Outsourcing Offshore, Outsourcing SMB's, Outsourcing Ukraine, Virtual Teams, entrepreneurs, startups | 125 Comments »

Here goes a review practically longer than the book!

Wednesday, February 23rd, 2011

On one hand there are certain expectations when picking up a pocket book on any subject. I expect some quick tips, checklists, something that I can quickly peruse and refer back to easily. I picked this one up since it was published in 2010 and published by Harvard Business School Publishing. 

My first impression was not good!  Why does a small pocket book, which by definition does not have a lot of room for details, have to go in to “what is a virtual team and why they are becoming more prevalent…….”.  Even if you have never led a virtual team, doesn’t everyone know this by now……   I did pick up a new term though in this section, ”same-place team”. The definition is obvious from the words, i.e. a team where all members are in the same location but I was under the impression that the more common term to use for this is co-located team (A quick scan of google I think corroborates this impression. Googling “same-place team” I get no results, versus the pages of results I received when I google’d “co-located team”.  But not a key point, it is understood.)

After the “Why Virtual Teams” chapter the book does become more helpful. The section on steps for communicating with virtual teams includes “planned spontaneity”.   Agreeing regular times to talk, and everyone knows we will be on the phone or online at such and such a time. Also open for chatting online times which can substitute for the “gathering around the water cooler scenarios”.  Also it includes key items such as agreeing, do you expect someone to respond to an email that you send on a weekend? 

Another important key scenario the book did address is when some workers are co-located and some are virtual, which is a very common situation.  Or even multiple co-located members and multiple virtual members. Sometimes it is easier to manage a virtual team when all team members are virtual than when there are multiple co-located members. It is easier for team members to care about their other co-located members than to worry about the team members located elsewhere.  The individual remote members will be more interested to know what is going on in the different locations because they are usually working “alone”, whereas the ones who are working with a team of two or more in their location, they will tend to be less active in worrying about who is in the other locations.  For these situations the book makes suggestions of how to ease the “isolation” or remote members and get the co-located members involved in helping with those situations. 

Other points I like about the book; I do like the “scenarios” which involve asking the reader what they would do in a particular situation (very realistic situations) and the mentors (authors) provide answers in the form of “what you could do”.  I also like the “Test Yourself” chapter at the end of the book under Tips and Tools.  It is better than most of these “tests”, the scenarios are more details. 

Now on to what I do not like about this book. Again and again I see this in virtual team books, the suggestion that the first meeting with a team, if at all possible should be face to face.  But rarely, if ever, have I seen suggestions of how to do the kick-off meeting if you and your team are in the more common situation of, we can’t do a face to face kick-off meeting, but we still have to start the project somehow.  Where are those suggestions? In this day and age most of what can be done face-to-face can be replicated with online tools. It may take more online meetings to replicate the face-to-face, but it can still be done.  Additionally the Tips and Tools section includes a section of “document layouts” to use for contact information, setting up a virtual team, identifying roles and responsibilities, etc.  The documents, in and of themselves, are just fine and useful, but I would think, given the fact that this was written just recently, that these would be translated now in to an online form and shown that way.  However, this may have to do with the fact that when I look at the references at the back of the book, there is only one article from 2006, most are from around the year 2000.  And the latest source for the book is 2000.  Technology and its use in virtual teams is not a strong suit for this book.  Hence the book was “compiled” recently, but based mostly on old sources.

The idea of a pocket book is one that you can quickly refer to for helpful hints or lists, etc.  (Well besides being one that you carry around in your pocket!!)  Is this, that kind of a book?  No not really. It is a good quick read if you are new to virtual teams.  The scenarios are helpful, the “test” of your knowledge of virtual teams is good, but could you refer to this book again and again.  I think not.  You are better off to make use of the “Quick Guide to Interaction Styles and Working Remotely: Strategies for Leading and Working in Virtual Teams” -     http://www.amazon.com/Quick-Interaction-Styles-Working-Remotely/dp/0971214476/ref=cm_cr-mr-title

“Leading Virtual Teams – Expert Solutions to Everyday Challenges”
2010 Harvard Business School Publishing
http://tinyurl.com/5vbnhhs

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How do we get remote team members to take responsibility?

Thursday, January 20th, 2011

How do we get remote team members to take responsibility? It is a common enough question, but is there really a difference for getting this done for remote team members versus team members who are co-located with you. I don’t think it makes a difference. How you do this is the same whether the team is co-located or whether they are remote. The issue is usually having a good management process.

Tips for helping to get your team to take responsibility:

#1: Clearly define who is responsible for what tasks. It is great to have a meeting with the whole team, discuss all of the tasks, what needs to be done, etc. But don’t end the meeting without clearly stating who is doing what. That can be done by having team members volunteer to take on certain tasks which are within their skill set, or “volunteering” someone if necessary. Every project/every task needs an ultimate responsible person.

#2: Clearly define when a project/task is due. This due date may be set because of outside forces; a promise to a client, a government requirement deadline, or other. Or you may have the opportunity to give the responsible person time to look closer at what needs to be done and to estimate the time it will take to get the task done. If that is the case, set a deadline for when the estimate needs to be done.

#3: For longer tasks, periodically check in to see how it is going, rather than waiting until the final due date for the whole project. Many managers do not like to do this because they feel it is micro-managing, or if they ask, they ask a very “generic” question such as, “how is it going?” which often elicits a standard response of, “ok”. How the “checking in” is perceived and how effective it is, depends greatly on how the question is asked. Common ways people ask about tasks include, “did you finish xyz task like you said you would?” which gives the impression that you are already thinking they could not have finished the task. Or a manager may go to the other extreme and just ask generically, “how is it going?” which may elicit just an “ok”. Try instead, as the project is going on, asking about specific tasks, “How did that research on xyz tool go that you needed to do? Did you find out what you need to?”. Asking in this way can help you get more information and more of a feel for how things are going rather than putting someone on the defensive.

#4: Make sure there are consequences for missing deadlines. Don’t let missing deadlines become a habit. There may be valid reasons for a deadline to be moved; a requirement absolutely needs to change, chosen technical design won’t work, etc., but in these cases the deadline should be moved before the original deadline is reached. The responsible person should know that the deadline needs to be moved much earlier, not at the last minute.

As the manger of a remote team, you are responsible for making sure that your team is as productive as possible. It starts with you. Being clear with what needs to be done, by when, and by whom, and then holding team member responsible, goes a long way towards making your team very effective.

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Interview everyone first?

Tuesday, November 23rd, 2010

I see this very often when a company is looking to work with a software development team or persons located outside the US;  high on their criteria list will be excellent language skills. This only makes sense. Everyone needs to be able to talk with each other and to make sure there is understanding of what needs to be done and why it needs to be done a certain way, etc.  But what happens many times is that the company will “rank” higher the person/s who speak English the best, and not take a closer look at the other skills needed to do the job; i.e technical skills, professional skills, etc.  Even if technical interviews are conducted.  Everyone likes a good interviewee, one that talks a lot, gives a lot of clear information.  But does that get you the best person for your team and for the work you need to have done.  Many times it does not.  When you are dealing at a distance, is this standard method of choosing who to work with, really the best way? 

Besides often not getting you the best person for the job, with this method, many companies also often have other concerns such as: 

- Someone out of camera range may be helping the person that I am interviewing, telling them the answers, etc. 
- The person I am interviewing may be taking too long to answer; they must not know what they are doing. The company may not be accounting for the fact that the person does have to do some interpreting in their head to make sure they understand what it is you want. 
- Or the person I talked with does not in the end up working on my project, or I never see that person again. Maybe the vendor I am working with put certain people in place for the interview portion, who could interview well, and then I get stuck with someone else.  Of course this situation more often would occur on a very large project, where it is more difficult to keep track of every single person working on your remote team. 

For these reasons, I believe there is a better way, when working at a distance, to choose who is best to work on your team.  How did companies such as MySQL (now Oracle), which had up to 75% of its work force working virtually, never met in person, decide who to work with? They actually saw their work! Most developers who ended up working closely with MySQL were ones whose work MySQL managers and exec saw as the developers were adding code to the MySQL open source code base. A great way to assess the work someone can do, by actually see what they can do!

Strategy for Success:

If you are looking to work with a person/s, or a team in a distant location, try actually having them do some work first.  Look at the code that they deliver to you, for your actual system. A good way to do this is to work with your vendor to come up with a pilot project or a pilot/test period.  Options for a pilot could be the following:

- One person working on several individual tasks, bug fixes or small enhancements for a set time period, one month, two months;
- Several persons working on several individual tasks, bugs fixes or small enhancements, as many as can be completed during a set time period of one/two months;
- Several persons working on a fixed scope of work, with fixed deliverables, with a fixed deadline.

There are many variants which would let you “try out” who to work with, for a short time period and for a reasonable price, that will give you a much clearer idea of who you are dealing with. This can work as well even if your particular product or application has a long ramp up period, i.e. it takes a while for any developer to get up to speed on your code and application.  Feel free to talk with your vendor about different trial periods/pilot projects which will be comfortable for both sides and give you a clear idea of what the developers working on your project can actually do.

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I want my team to be more proactive!

Friday, September 24th, 2010

Have you ever thought this about your remote software development team?  I want my team to be more involved, I want them to be proactive, I want them to come up with ideas, etc., etc.  Well there may be some ways that you are unknowingly setting a different tone for the team, (In reality, these issues can come up for both co-located teams and distributed teams; outsourced or in-house).  

Centralized decision making? Do you have a team that has been working with your application for a long time, they are very knowledgeable and can quickly make changes, fixes, etc., but have you centralized the technical decision making?  For example, are all decisions as to changes in the development environment, frameworks to use, database changes (including such things as adding tables, fields, etc.), porting to a new database, etc., etc.,  made centrally, i.e. at the headquarters without consulting at least some of the developers at the remote location (at least the lead one or two persons)? Certainly you can do it that way that is your right as a company to make those decisions wherever you want.  However if you do that, and continue to do it, you are showing several things to your remote team (or your in-house team if you do not include at least some of them in the decision), that you do not respect the knowledge that they have, that you do not value their opinions, and so on. If you do not include them in these kind of decisions how can you expect them to share with you their ideas or suggestions when you are showing them you do not value their opinion on some of the infrastructure decisions for your application?  They may try for a while to make suggestions, but if they continue to see this kind of centralized decision making, without input from others, their enthusiasm may soon die. 

Why you would want to include more members of your team in your decision making process, at least asking their opinion:  Take advantage of the knowledge they have gained, their day to day work with your system may be able to point out where another technical solution may be better, or where the solution you suggested may cause issues in the long run.  It can be done so that it does not add so much time to the decision making process.

So the next time you are wondering why your software development team is not as proactive as you would like them to be, or not providing you with their suggestions, think about how you work with the team when you have research and decisions to be made for your application.  If you make all decisions yourself, or with a small group of co-located people, next time think about including some additional opinions from other team members.  In the long run it will not only help with that particular decision, but will also help with future ideas for improvements to your system.

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Continuing the “I have a feeling….” situations, and how to handle them!

Tuesday, August 24th, 2010

Continuing the “I have a feeling….” situations, there is one more I wanted to talk about which often occurs when working remotely, that is the, I have a feeling something is wrong, but I am not sure what?”  This is a harder to dissect, because it could be anything.  I have a feeling they are not telling me the truth, I have a feeling that they are not telling me something, I have a feeling they are keeping something from me, and the list goes on and on. 

Certainly these feels are exacerbated if you, as the project manager, are located remotely and the rest of the team is located somewhere else.  Or a large part of the team is co-located with smaller groups of people in other locations.

The only way you are going to “resolve” this feeling is by asking questions.  Many managers have issues with asking questions, especially it seems Americans. They often take it as micromanaging. But if you are working at a distance, with people from other cultures, how are you supposed to feel comfortable with what is taking place “over there”, if you do not ask questions.  Beyond asking, “How’s it going?”.  I think we expect to get a lot of information out of such a question, but sometimes you have to ask more pointed questions, like, “Did that design that we talked about work out for the function you are working on?” Or something like, “Did you find a work around for that issue with iTunes?”  These types of questions are not micromanaging, they are questions to eliminate the “feeling that something is wrong”, and make you feel confident that everyone is on the same page.  There is always the good question that I mentioned in one of the previous blogs on how to handle “I have a bad feeling” situation, “Show me where we are, what is done, what remains to be done, roadblocks?”, “Let’s walk through the last/current delivery so I understand where we are.”

In another example, if you have this feeling that, “they are not telling me the truth”.  Without getting too touchy feely, think about when you have this feeling?  Is it when they tell you that the project is going well, and you do not have to worry? I don’t know about you, but someone telling me not to worry, it makes me worry.  I prefer the, “show me so I do not have to worry!”  With most application development projects, developed using an agile development methodology, it should be fairly quick that you can actually “see” something, and know if the team is going in the right direction or not. If not an actual running app, but can you see something from the area in question, a written design, database design, or whatever may be relevant.

In summary for project managers, when you have these “feelings that something is wrong”: Do not be afraid to ask questions, beyond, “how’s it going today?”, until those feelings dissipate. It does not have to take all day, or even take that much time, and it will save a lot of time in the long run worrying about something that may or may not be a problem.

In summary for team members: Realize that managers and other stakeholders, who may be located remotely from you, and even at your location, need to understand exactly where the project is at, and they need you to be proactive and alert them to potential areas for issues.  Asking questions, and offering suggestions about the app being developed also lets the manager know you are thinking about the project, how to create the best app possible, and it confirms your level of understanding of the project and gives your manager more confidence in your skills.

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Another “feeling” situation and possible ways to deal with it!

Saturday, June 5th, 2010

Today I wanted to continue our discussion on the “feeling” type of concerns when working with a remote software development team.

For dealing with the situation, “He/she said yes he will do it, or he said he understands, but I have a feeling he/she doesn’t really understand,” I believe it can be handled in a similar manner attempting to obtain concrete data to support or not support your feelings. This feeling can be common when dealing with remote teams located in different parts of the world. If people are dealing with English as a 2nd or 3rd language they may not ask as many questions as you would like which would show they are thinking about the request, or that they understand. The person could be not as comfortable with their English skills to ask the required questions, or they could just be quiet in general, or it could be that they are afraid to ask too many questions because in some cultures it would not be good to question the client. Therefore it is going to be up to you to dig in further and help dissipate your “feelings” that there may be a misunderstanding. There can be several ways to start with this. Ask your remote team to “write down” was is discussing during status meetings and send a recap to everyone in the team, after the meeting. Review these notes to see what is understood or where there may be issues. There is also nothing wrong with asking a team member to repeat what they heard while you are in the online meeting or on the conference call, etc. This request can be validated by simply saying that you just want to make sure everyone is on the same page. No one should have a problem with this type of request for better communication. If you are not satisfied with the oral delivery of what the developer is to do, ask them to put it in an email or an IM. These types of steps should help the PM determine if additional explanation is needed for a particular task. If you now believe you have done all of the explaining you can do, and the developer has explained what he/she thinks should be done, you should at least have concrete evidence as to the level of understanding; i.e. here is what I told them they needed to do, and here is what they think they have to do and the two do not match. If that is the case, it may be time to talk with your vendor about the situation. You may need to make a team member change or you, and your vendor, may need to dig in more deeply as to why there is a disconnect. The last step should bring even more concrete evidence one way or the other. Once the developer starts to actually work on the feature or request, you will also get concrete evidence as to whether or not the developer understands what they are doing. More relevant questions should come up, plus you will be able to look at actual code and very quickly you may be able to look at actual results. All of these results will either help validate or alleviate your feelings that there is a misunderstanding.

I have one more “feeling” situation I want to talk about next time.

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I have a “feeling” something is wrong!

Tuesday, June 1st, 2010

We have all had these types of feelings when dealing with people who are located a distance from us.  Or even from managing a project where everyone is co-located.  Maybe it is just part of being a project manager; we are looking for any possible risks that can cause our projects to fail.  Managing at a distance can exacerbate these feelings when you can’t see each other all of the time, or at a moment’s notice when the feeling comes up.  

I have heard this phrase stated in several ways:  

• “I have a feeling they won’t do what I need them to do”,  or
• “He/she said yes he will do it, or he said he understands, but I have a feeling he/she doesn’t really understand.”   Or a more general fear,
• “I have a feeling something is wrong, but I am not sure what?”

I think there are ways to mitigate these risks or feelings that can come up. One of those ways can be to ask more questions and another is to use the work completed as a guide.  

First make sure you feel comfortable with what you have asked them to do and what you are concerned that they won’t do.  Are you concerned that they won’t code something in a certain way?  Are you concerned that if you ask them to make a change they won’t do it? Are you concerned that they “can’t” do what you need them to do?  A lot of these issues are very different but most of them can be addressed by history, if there has been any history of working together, or by asking questions.   For example, if you have not been working together long, and if you have a feeling they won’t code something in a certain way, ask them for a “design” of how they plan to code the feature (for those who are afraid of written documentation, this does not mean they have to write a large document, you are not asking for the world).  This can also be done orally, and if not good enough, ask for a written explanation.  If the design is not what you expected, you have other issues, and you will have to determine and make a judgment as to whether or not the issue is; they did a poor design, it would work, but it is not how you would have done it, or it would work but it is not how it needs to be done for this application.  But at least you will have validated the “feeling” that you had and now you can deal with a concrete situation and not something abstract. 

I will review another one of the “feelings” of concern later this week.

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Avoid the “Do as I say, not as I do” syndrome!

Wednesday, May 26th, 2010

“How do I get my remote software development team to be more productive?”  It is something we all want to do, be more productive. One observation I have made with distributed co-located software development teams (i.e. more than one team located in more than one geographical location) is there can be an attitude of: “Do as I say, not as I do”. This can come from the team that works at headquarters or any team that is working in a multi-team situation.  This situation can apply to both in-house teams in multiple locations as well as if outsourced teams are involved.

We know that all teams working on the same application/product should have the same goal; to make the application the best that it can be and provide the best service to the company’s customers.  What can affect this goal is perception that one team is not living up to that goal, i.e. not being as productive as possible.  And what can affect productivity is the knowledge that there are different rules for different teams, or more specifically the enforcement or said rules.  The rules I am talking about related to productivity may be rules for design, level of design documents, coding standards, conducting peer reviews, commenting, documentation, etc.  I am making the assumption that there is one set of rules for development for the entire system, which most likely there is, every company strives for this.  But productivity, let alone motivation, can go down real quick if one side sees that they have to follow the rules and another team does not. 

It can be hard enough, but not impossible, to make distributed teams feel like they are one team and working towards the same goals, but when one side sees clearly (and in software development it is not hard to see concretely the differences) that another team is not held to the team coding standards (whether they be team specific standards or industry standards), or testing standards or documentation or commenting standards, etc., motivation goes out the door. If everyone is co-located, we tend to more easily enforce standards across a team, but it is an easy thing to let it lapse when there are several co-located teams in multiple locations.  It is easier to dismiss one team as not being productive, and to not delve in to why that may be occurring.

The fix to this issue is simple. Make sure all team members are living up to the standards the team and the company have set for themselves and for the application and system that is being built and supported. There is never any excuse for one team to get away with not following standards because it is felt they have to push some changes through at the last minute always, for example, and therefore never have time to follow the standards. In software development, what team ever has all of the time that they would like?  No team ever does. If it was truly the case where a last minute fix needed to go in, go back and make the necessary updates to meet coding standards, documentation standards, etc (although most teams would let it slide, for the good of the team, if they saw that this was an emergency situation and rarely occurred). Having one team do their own thing, and tell the other teams, well “Do as I say, not as I do”, doesn’t work for teams the same as it doesn’t work for the leaders and managers of teams. Follow the same rules for all team members, no matter where they are located, and distributed teams will work much smoother!

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