Getting GlobalSome real world ways to help make development teams

truly global

Brett Jackson

Director Game Development

Bally Technologies, India

Jan 2011

This presentation is:

• Production and development centric• A trigger list not a training manual

Product Development is a global endeavour,

You have two choices:

1. embrace global and continuous improvement

2. fiddle while rome burns

areas of struggle• it’s difficult to create one view• the issues are not static or clear• some will lack the skills/experience to

engage with the problem

• tried and true local approaches don’t solve the problems• acknowledging up front the extra cost and effort that

running distributed projects entails - (e.g. 30 to 40% increase in Project Management efforts)

barriers to overcome• watch out for tribal or “assumed” knowledge.

‒ long tenures‒ arcane rules/regulations‒ subjective results/goals‒ IP/Patents

• transparency is uncomfortable/distrusted• hard won knowledge is not easily

surrendered

common gaps

• Communication• Mis-diagnosis and bias• Cultural disconnects• Skills and tools

• Under-estimation• Acceptance of status quo• Sloganism - a catch

phrase won’t do it by itself

areas distributed teams encounter problems or miss opportunities

start with people

• become specific in fostering a global “match fitness” in staff

• build up “CI” - Cultural Intelligence, as a company and as individuals

• enhance hiring methods to uncover and hire the globally adept in all areas of the business

• explore and encourage pragmatic/innovative tools that foster and enable collaboration and knowledge sharing

• create a multi level global training curriculum for all staff - mandatory modules for supervisory and above.

• look at 3rd parties for training resources -• www.eworldwise.com, www.twmworld.com

stay withpeople

light up the shadows• all teams need to:

‒ make meeting times equitable‒ share the pain and the successes‒ realise that information does not flow by itself. ‒ vital information must be shared actively. ‒ identify corridor conversations that should be shared‒ Over communicate and get validation on all key

messages/actions‒ take the extra effort to find out who owns the issue

at the other end

rethink ways of working

• create regular weekly goals and ensure they are communicated them to everyone

• create a projectboard that all can see (online and physical) of this weeks main issues. Update it constantly.

• adopt modern, lightweight, and inexpensive collaboration tools like Atlassian’s Confluence and JIRA and aggressively drive adoption and usage

• avoid reliance on a few massive milestones.

try new ways of working• Teams should trial “standup meetings” • daily 10/15 min meetings rather than rely on 2

hour+ review meetings every week or two• Format:

‒ no one sits down and brevity is encouraged‒ each person briefly states their goals and

blockers (if any) for today‒ an owner is assigned to any blockers discovered‒ team high 5’s any successes‒ projectboard’s are updated

refine ways of working

• single points of truth and ownership for all issues. ‒ one person for each project/issue.‒ name and contacts of owner are

communicated to all ‒ publish an online list of projects and current

owners and give someone ownership for keeping it up to date.

re-engineer your DNA• overtly define 2nd level team roles in all projects.

‒ Leader‒ Scribe‒ Facilitator

‒ Tech Admin‒ Knowledge Mgr‒ Domain Experts

• recognise and reward networking activities

• define/actively manage a balance between growth of islands of competence vs global expertise growth

formalise culture changecreate a playbook for meetings and ensure all have and know it.

• no meetings without a published agenda• if you can’t make a meeting on time let the others know• friendly timing of meetings for all participants• remove dead meetings• time zone tools readily available - meeting planner

phrases to ban

• Avoid the following in speaking and thinking

• “It goes without saying....”• “Everybody already knows that.....”• “The rest is obvious....”

get face to face• At least one offshore team member

does a 30 day+ attachment with their HQ counterparts each year.

• All leaders with offshore teams must visit at least once every 2 years

• bring whole team together for kick off events/workshops for large projects

make global the norm• cultural understanding

presentations for all teams. Indian culture for US, Chinese culture for Indian etc

• simple recognition of significant cultural celebrations across the organisation - Thanksgiving, Diwali, Chinese New Year

re-examine yourself• Identify your most common “Boundary Objects” -

‒ Common terms/situations/behaviours which are viewed differently in different cultures.

• They are close enough to appear the same but different enough to cause confusion.

• These are common pain points in distributed teams. To identify, look back on major problems and look for common threads

know the differences• sometimes it’s how you ask the

question...• if I ask “is xxxx over there?” and I point in a

specific direction. then I have expressed a viewpoint• some cultures will avoid challenging that viewpoint vs.

giving the correct answer to avoid making me look bad• better to ask “where would i find xxxx?” with no pointing -

everyone is free to answer with the best response.• the same is true with business questions• people don’t magically drop cultural habits they learnt in

childhood just because they join a new company

hiring - qualities to look for

• you have to be extra proactive to work in a distributed company

• you need to hire people in all offices who are more than just technically capable, they need be natural connectors and communicators.

• they need to show proof of staying in touch with information/trends/prof groups by their own initiative/drive

hiring - questions• What is the most interesting

approach/trend you have seen in the last 12 months? Why? Where? How did you learn about this?

• What methods do you use to stay in touch with technical and industry advances?

• How do you solve problems where there is no existing data?

Thanks

Feedback to:

Brett Jackson

brett@mii2.com

Las Vegas

NV, USA