Across the hall / Across the Globe Project Management: Challenges for

Across the hall / Across the Globe Project Management: Challenges for globally distributed teams Vikas Sehgal [email protected] Projistics San Jose, CA

Gartner says By 2004 60% of professional and management tasks at Global 1000 companies will be by virtual teams. By 2003 50% of virtual teams will fail to meet strategic / operational objectives. 2

Agenda Why distributed teams? Challenges Risks Possible approach Case study – Lexware / Intuit 3

Vikas Sehgal 10 years experience working in distributed teams Co-Founded Nagarro – an offshore software services company Co-Founder and President of Projistics – a software suite of tools for managing project lifecycle. 4

Why distributed teams Cost saving Availability of talent Mergers and acquisitions Projects span across company boundaries (ex: Projects with remote partners or customers) 5

What you loose Ad-hoc meetings Water cooler discussions Radio corridor Whiteboard Socializing 6

Challenges Distance Communication costs Connectivity Reduced face-to-face interaction Different time zones Cultural Language 7

Project Risks Inaccurate progress tracking Team conflict – more personal than professional Lack of trust Technology and tools to choose Security / IPR 8

More Project Risks Creating a shared sense of purpose / goal / team spirit Build vision through leadership Sense of community / identity Cannot get emotional tone in communications 9

Case Study – Lexware / Intuit Project Objective: Help Lexware develop the German version of QuickBooks Locations: – San Jose, CA – Edmonton, Canada – Freiburg, Germany – New Delhi, India 10

Lexware - challenges Quickbooks source code – more than 2 GB Language – German variables, comments Time zone – working across 4 different time zones 11

Communication Define your communication channels Define frequency of communication Maintain minutes of the meetings, action item lists, red flags 12

QuickBooks 2003 (released July, 2002) Intuit,Canada Lexware, Germany Nagarro, Germany Nagarro,India Domain knowledge transfer: Ger/Aus tax systems, Euro rules, VAT Requirements Day-to-day functional queries UK-Canada codebase Initial/basic functional queries UK-Canada codebase Ger/Aus codebase Requirements USD Code update / sync baselines Development Escalated technical queries Day-to-day technical queries Day-to-day technical queries Weekly status updates Test plans Bugs, QA Test plan review Test results Bug assignment Patches/bug fixes Billing, Satisfaction Timesheets Issue resolution, escalation 13

Time zone The nightmare of scheduling a conference call with people in four different time zones. Overlapping workdays Collaborative time is reduced by a union of holidays 14

Business Processes 15

Micromanage Locally Don’t even try to micro-manage remotely Distributed teams need distributed project management Single, responsible point of contact at each location 16

Share Knowledge Build knowledge repositories Make them easily available Make sure everyone contributes 17

IM Instant communication – saves time Faster than email Less intrusive than phone IM and security – enterprise IM solutions 18

Intranet/Extranet/EverythingNet Browser is king All information available through Intranet / Extranet Firewall issues / VPN / Security Knowledge bases accessible through the Intranet 19

Project Methodology Choose the methodology wisely Waterfall – good for large projects with well-defined goals Rapid prototyping (Evolutionary Lifecycle) – good for rapidly changing requirements Spiral – good for risk minimization 20

Manage Change Define policies / procedures to manage change Document every change Evaluate change and define impact of the change and configuration items affected Approval and workflow process Automatic task creation and linked back to change 21

Risk Management and Mitigation What Risk ? Identify risks early on in the project Devise mitigation plans Review risks during the project based on current state of project 22

Deliverable Management Use a result oriented approach Identify clearly definable and verifiable deliverables Communicate deadline slippages well in advance Document everything 23

Tools Use integrated solutions – Workflow for business process automation – Task management and prioritization – Change Management – Risk Management – Issue tracking and automatic routing – Customizable – Delegated administration 24

Questions? Across the hall / Across the Globe Project Management: Challenges for globally distributed teams Vikas Sehgal [email protected] Projistics San Jose, CA 25