Lessons learn from offshoring software development to India and applying an agile approach.

1. 2012-04-12, Ove Holmberg

2. Agenda
 Agile vs Offshore
 Social Etiquette
 Culture
 Project setup
 Tools
 Communication
 Team/People
 Delivery

3. Agile vs Offshore
 Individuals and interactions over processes and
tools
 Working software over comprehensive documentation
 Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
 Responding to change over following a plan
And the challenge in a GADD enviroment is...
How to coach Individuals and teams so
interactions happen in a effective way, when
F2F is not possible.

4. Social etiquette
 Caste system
 Clothings
 Visit a home
 Body language
 Pointing
 Shouting
 Sex diffrences
 Men do not generally speak to or approach women they do not know.
 Men should not generally give Indian women compliments.
 Members of the opposite sex should keep approximately one arm‘s length distance from one another.
 Men can sometimes be seen holding hands or walking arm-in-arm.

5. Culture
 Strictly heirarcical
 A yes can be a no
 No own initatives
 If being not sure they do not ask
 Prio:
1. Family
2. Work
3. Sports...Family

6. Culture
 When women marry they focus on the family
onwards.
 Salarys only inrease when changing
company.
 Bonus system.
 Growth potential and learning makes people
stay.
 Hofstede...

7. Hofstede cultural theory
Power
Distance Individual- Mascu- Uncertanity Long term
Country Index ism linity Avoidance orientation Sum
Japan 54 46 95 92 80 367
China 80 20 66 40 118 324
Brazil 69 38 49 76 65 297
India 77 48 56 40 61 282
Australia 36 90 61 51 31 269
United States 40 91 62 46 29 268
United Kingdom 35 89 66 35 25 250
Iran 58 41 43 59 201
Sweden 31 71 5 29 33 169
Denmark 18 74 16 23 131
Max 104 91 95 112 118 367
Min 11 6 5 8 16 131
Average 60 41 50 65 44 233

8. Project setup
○ Mature leadership
○ Dual structure
○ Good PM, Arch and Proxy PM
○ India leadership part of the decisions
○ Deputies for key roles
○ Responsibilities should be where work is
done.
○ Keep creative stuff local

9. Tools
 Video: Skype, Webex, Lync
 Screensharing: Skype, Webex, Lync
 Telco: Skype, Intercall.
 Code: Jira, TFS
 Management: Jira, Sharepoint.

10. Communication
 Transparency
 Choose the right media
 Set the processes
 Remember the time diffrence +4,5
 Have daily calls between counterparts: Arch -
> Arch, PM <-> PM
 Skilled in English but hard to hear

11. Team/People
 Skill of new hires is often low
 High attrition 10-20%/year
 Team events is needed
 Rewards is desireable
 Discipline good habits are few
 Availability hard to predict
 Daily transport
 Floating holidays
 Gets married
 Fixed sick days
 Family member ill

12. Delivery
 Travel often both ways
 Get early access to environments
 Use trackers
 Set and use coding standards
 Agree on Definition of Done
 Plan stabilization phases
 QA done both local and offshore
 Keep creative in the team until end
 Have site dev close to the client

13. Globald Agile Distribted Delivery model
Implementation
Solution Design Support
I1 I2 I3 … IN UAT / Release
Client
Local
Partner
offshore
Onsite, combined client The majority of the development team is If needed, a portion of the A partner development
and partner team designs offshored. Key partner personnel remain team returns to the client contacts remain with the client
the solution. on site to work directly with the client. site to manage and execute to diagnose and analyze issues.
UAT.
Implementation team Daily conference calls and periodic trips Defect fixes, enhancements,
begins to transition to between geographies ensure continuity Defect fixes occur offshore, and new release development
India for development and knowledge sharing. leveraging the “24-hour occurs offshore.
iterations. testing” model.

14. Misc
 Immigration
 If staying long in Sweden, Migrationsverket need to
say OK. How to speed up?
 Contracts
 FTFP iterations (aka Agile contracts) – how to be
accepted?

15. Contact
 Twitter: @ovehol
 Email: ove.holmberg@gmail.com
 Slideshare: slideshare.net/oveholmberg