MIS 648 Lecture 121 MIS 648 Presentation Notes: Lecture 12 Meeting the Challenges of Developing Systems Internationally

MIS 648 Lecture 122 AGENDA  Introduction to the lecture  Goal of the Lecture  Global Software Teams, revisited  Culture and IS Development Decisions (Heales, et al.)

MIS 648 Lecture 123 Basic Issues  Software development is complicated by being dispersed across national boundaries  Projects are driven by economics, strategy and management that produce global teams  Technology both drives as well as enables global team practice

MIS 648 Lecture 124 What Makes These Teams SO Hard to Manage?  Is it something about IT?  Volatile, complicated, culturally specific?  Is it something about IT people?  Challenge oriented, uncommunicative, mobile, unconnected to firm?  Is it something about IT’s role in organizations?  Unclear, underresourced, unrepresented, not included in planning, high stress?

MIS 648 Lecture 125 Our Basic Model of IT Project Management Success Information Technology Characteristics Information Technology Worker Characteristics Information Technology Work Env’t Characteristics Information Technology Task Characteristics Information Technology Org’l Characteristics IT Project Outcomes

MIS 648 Lecture 126 Bad Things  Team disintegrates  Team management loses control  Team produces awful products  Team cannot sustain products  Team creates sustaining problems  Team destroys client Team cannot function; software cannot be produced at all All aspects of team production become uncertain. Upper management/client lose trust in team Quality is hard to guarantee when team isn’t functioning coherently Team doesn’t have any long-term presence and hence cannot maintain products Product produces problems “forever” or “odor” of project experience lingers beyond project Product or project experience is so bad that client cannot function

MIS 648 Lecture 127 Push-Pull  Forces Countering Global Teamwork  Mostly due to distance  Also culture  Result makes it harder to manage team, ensure quality, keep to design promises  Forces Empowering Global Teamwork  Mostly assisted by technology  Also good management practice on a global basis  Leadership is important

MIS 648 Lecture 128 ` Disintegration Global Software Teams Cohesion Loss of Control Culture Clash Federation of Units Coord’n Breakdown Comm’n Poverty Telcoms Infrastructure Collaorative Technology Leadership Product Characteristics Team Building Software Dev. Method’y Source: Erran Carnel: Global Software Teams: A Framework for Managerial Problems and Solutions, 2002.

MIS 648 Lecture 129 Group Life Cycle Revisited Group Effectiveness Time, Investment Forming Storming Performing Norming Staffing, instructing the group Negotiating who does what, how, when Working out the development rules, refining them Developing and delivering software

MIS 648 Lecture 1210 Global Software Teams -- Advice Encourage lateral communication and coordination Be more formal, yet more informal, too Give everyone a 360 o view Establish trust early in the project and foster it throughout Establish a team memory Be aware of culture and language Items in red are especially important in global software teams

MIS 648 Lecture 1211 Global Software Teams – Critique of Advice  Communication Structure techniques tend to be labor intensive and expensive where technology is involved  Formal/informal is important, but very difficult to do in practice  360-degree view is OK, but events move faster than your planning and intentions.

MIS 648 Lecture 1212 Global Software Teams – Critique of Advice - 2  Trust is hard to build, especially across cultures, and requires personal commitment, travel, presence, risk sharing  Team memory is good idea  Culture is a real problem and not easily dismissed or taken into account.

MIS 648 Lecture 1213 Now, Add in Culture  Global software development teams are generally cross-cultural  This includes offshoring activities, too (see next lectures)  Globalization is only exacerbating potential and actual problems.  Heales, et al examine the effects of national culture on IS development decisions rather than on development itself.

MIS 648 Lecture 1214 Culture in this Research  Organizational culture affects organizational decisions  National culture affects organizational culture.  Hofstede is abandoned for GLOBE (which is based on Hofstede) because of vagueness problems but does not address the stereotyping problems.

MIS 648 Lecture 1215 The GLOBE Dimensions  Power Distance (=Hofstede)  Uncertainty Avoidance (=Hofstede)  Institutional Collectivism (cf. Individ’ism)  Family Collectivism (cf. Individ’ism)  Humane Orientation (cf. Masculinity)  Performance Orientation  Future Orientation (=later Hofstede)  Gender Egalitarianism (cf. Masculinity)  Assertiveness (=Masculinity) These two meet some of the problems with Individualism These two meet some of the problems with Masculinity

MIS 648 Lecture 1216 Adaptive Maintenance Changes  Research looks at decision making with regard to evolution of system in terms of either enhancement (addition, improvement) or redevelopment (replacement)  Because culture affects decision making, it should also affect adaptive maintenance decision making as well as the level at which decision making is performed.

MIS 648 Lecture 1217 The Basic Model PDistance UAvoidance FutureOrient InstitutColl’m FamilyColl’m HumaneOrien PerfomOrien GenderEgal Assert Enhancement Decision Redevelopment Decison - All influences are + unless otherwise noted. Executive Level Decision Issue Resolution Process

MIS 648 Lecture 1218 Research Method  Data on 1238 projects worldwide from 2000 was used; 421 were eliminated because not all GLOBE dimensions were available.  N=817  Used “What is” rather than “what should be” indicators of the GLOBE form  It appears that the bulk of the data comes from English-speaking countries.

MIS 648 Lecture 1219 Analysis  Stepwise multiple regression was used  Few of the relationships were found to be strong  There was significant correlation of dimensions

MIS 648 Lecture 1220 The Results PDistance UAvoidance FutureOrient InstitutColl’m FamilyColl’m HumaneOrien PerfomOrien GenderEgal Assert Enhancement Decision Redevelopment Decison All influences are + unless otherwise noted. Executive Level Decision Issue Resolution Process

MIS 648 Lecture 1221 The Results FutureOrient InstitutColl’m GenderEgal Assert Enhancement Decision Redevelopment Decison Executive Level Decision Issue Resolution Process FO<US: Italy GE<US: India AS<US: Japan IC<US: Italy

MIS 648 Lecture 1222 So What?  How does this differ from how any team functions in today’s globalized economy?  What does the task add to the situation?  What does IT culture add to the situation?  What does the work environment add to the situation?