Large scale software engineering at high speed

1. Large-Scale Software Engineering at High Speed Texas A&M UniversityIAP Distinguished Lecture Mark Cathcart Senior Distinguished Engineer; Director Software Engineering Dell Inc. http://cathcam.wordpress.com Mark_cathcart@dell.com March 8, 2011

2. Speed is of the Essence Today, we’re in an era where speed is of the essence. It’s critical for competitive reasons to stay ahead of the competition. The customer expectation in the Internet-era is much higher. 2 Enterprise Product Group 2

3. Engineering is a Discipline Foundation: firm foundation in engineering; treat like a discipline Definition: [Wikipedia] first descriptive word is discipline Followed by art and profession Discipline: The key to success; more professional. 3 Enterprise Product Group 3 3

5. Big=global. Projects are globally distributed and developed.

6. Global differences. Attitude and approach will be vastly different.

7. Play to cultural strengths. Adapt to cultural strengthsEnterprise Product Group 4

9. No surprises: Good ≠ good; Bad ≠ bad

10. Communicate: Over communicate; understand/align.

11. Incremental works: Checkpoints; gauge progress; report out.Enterprise Product Group 5

13. Good architecture: Effective in a globally distributed environment.

14. Vertical no more: No Silos; technology evolving horizontally.

15. Alignment: The way people think about constructing systems needs to match the engineering. Enterprise Product Group 6

17. Customer choice: through open, horizontal integration

18. Dell: We’re building the architecture to support engineering disciplines that respect differences for customers worldwide.Enterprise Product Group 7

19. 8 Q&A

20. 9 Thank you!