A talk presented at Agile India 2012 in Bangalore, India.

1. How to Avoid
The Stereotype of
The Childish Indian

2. A Difficult Topic
Indians are NOT childish
The stereotype is immature
People are professional
Two cultures
Sliding scale

3. About Me
Living in New Delhi
Agile Coach
Team Lead
Solution Architect
Developer
Danish and Indian distributed team

4. The Problem
Inherent problem in distributed teams
Lack of trust
But more so outsourcing to India
Why?

5. Agenda
Explaining the
Negative Stereotype
Time
Morality
Responsibility

6. Time - stories
The Trainer
Office Mornings

7. Time - discussion
Perspective:
Indian time
Danish time
How late is late?

8. Time - solutions
Simple
Don't be late
Let people know if you are late
Not so simple
Discuss time culture in your office

9. Morality - stories
Cold Drinks
Office Candy

10. Morality - stories
Queuing
Playing the
Game

11. Morality - discussion
Perspective:
Indian morality
Danish morality
Sitting in a Team -
Explain the
stereotype to
a Dane

12. Morality - solutions
No easy solution
Discuss working culture
Explain the issues that are a fact in India

13. Responsibility - stories
Work Alone
Take Initiative
Follow Up
Communicate Defects
or Delays

14. Responsibility - discussion
Perspective
Danish ideal of
the professional
employee
Brainstorm
Put post-its on
the wall

15. Responsibility - solutions
The Indian Ideal of the professional employee
Show responsibility
Means to get there
These are very difficult things
- agile methods can help

16. Avoiding the Stereotype
You can do it
Start by stating the issues
Ask - Listen - Explain
Find a common solution

17. Agile methods
Extreme Programming
Scrum
Retrospective
Planning
Whole Team

18. Cultural Theories
Our way
Your way
A common way
How to get there?