mastering current global software development challenges
TRANSCRIPT
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Michael HeissGlobal Vice President for Knowledge, Innovation & TechnologySiemens IT Solutions and Services
© Siemens AG Austria 2009. All rights reserved.
Mastering Current GSD Challenges
Top 3 challenges for GSD in our business
Increasing cost pressure
Increasing complexity of projects
Increasing volatility of organizations
Some of our experiences in coping with these challenges
Project communication using „old“ and „new“ media
Knowledge networking within and outside the company
Management of complexity
Agenda
Page 3 © Siemens AG Austria 2009. All rights reserved.
Cost pressure – the main driver for GSD
During the last years the cost pressure for offering IT services and software development has been increasing steadily
This holds true for many other businesses, too, if the work is easily transportable
Software business ispeople intensive
The reduction of hourly rates is the key argument for CFOs
This is often seen like a natural law of globalization
Top 3 challenges for GSD in our business
Increasing cost pressure
Increasing complexity of projects
Increasing volatility of organizations
Some of our experiences in coping with these challenges
Project communication using „old“ and „new“ media
Knowledge networking within and outside the company
Management of complexity
Agenda
Page 5 © Siemens AG Austria 2009. All rights reserved.
A pragmatic definition of complexity
We call a technical system complex
(in contrast to complicated), if it is impossible to predict the behaviour of the whole system,
even if you know exactly how each of the system components
behave and interact.
Page 6 © Siemens AG Austria 2009. All rights reserved.
Just a simple example for complexity
System 1
0
0,2
0,4
0,6
0,8
1
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Takt
Au
sgan
swer
t
x(t=0..4) = 0,8
x(t > 4) = 0,1 System 3
0
1
2
3
4
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Takt
Au
sg
an
sw
ert
System 2
0
0,05
0,1
0,15
0,2
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Takt
Au
sg
an
sw
ert
Delayone step
y = x - x²
y = 3,8x
3 very simple elements
3 simple behaviors
“perfectly predictable”
x y
x y
x y
Page 7 © Siemens AG Austria 2009. All rights reserved.
y1
x = y1 y3
x = y3
y2 x = y2
Just a simple example
y = x - x² y = 3,8x
Complexity is generatedby interaction
Delayone step
Page 8 © Siemens AG Austria 2009. All rights reserved.
Just a simple example … ???
00,10,20,30,40,50,60,70,80,9
1
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
Takt
Aus
gang
swer
t
y1 volle Genauigkeity1 auf drei Kommastellen
Complexity is generatedby interaction.The result is…
Even the best supercomputer of the world cannot predict more than 300 steps
full precisionlimited precision
Time steps
Page 9 © Siemens AG Austria 2009. All rights reserved.
A typical real-life software example: the high number of interactions leads to high complexity
In a real world software system the number of elements, interactions and dependencies is far larger than in the simple “toy” examples, e.g.: integration in legacy systems, interoperability with additional IT systems
Example: Intelligent Networks service platform for telecom systems (more than 100 customers worldwide)
Top 3 challenges for GSD in our business
Increasing cost pressure
Increasing complexity of projects
Increasing volatility of organizations
Some of our experiences in coping with these challenges
Project communication using „old“ and „new“ media
Knowledge networking within and outside the company
Management of complexity
Agenda
Page 11 © Siemens AG Austria 2009. All rights reserved.
Organizations are changing rapidly: new ways of global cooperation are opened
“The only constant is change”
Mergers and acquisitions,
Reorganization of companies
High turnover rates in many low-cost countries
Interesting new perspectives such as
“Project companies”
Open innovation
Crowd sourcing
Page 12 © Siemens AG Austria 2009. All rights reserved.
The challenge of „project companies“: working with the unknown
Survival of the fittestEvolutionary approach:mutation, recombination, selection
company 1 company 2project
company
small company
Page 13 © Siemens AG Austria 2009. All rights reserved.
1) Chesbrough, H. (2003), "Open Innovation: The New Imperative for Creating and Profiting from Technology“, Harvard Business School Press
Paradigm shift of Open Innovation1)
Open Innovation:Suggestion for a change in cooperation models
• We should control our innovation process, so that our competitors don't profit from our ideas.
• If we create the most and the best ideas in the industry, we will win.
• To profit from research and development (R&D), we must discover it, develop it and ship it ourselves.
• The smart people in our field work for us.
Closed innovation Principles
• We should profit from others' use of our innovation process, and we should buy others' intellectual property (IP)
• If we make the best use of internal and external ideas, we will win.
• External R&D can create significant value; internal R&D is needed to claim some portion of that value.
• Not all the smart people work for us. We need to work with smart people inside and outside our company.
Open innovation Principles
The lab is our world
The world is our labStrategic opening of innovation
Top 3 challenges for GSD in our business
Increasing cost pressure
Increasing complexity of projects
Increasing volatility of organizations
Some of our experiences in coping with these challenges
Project communication using „old“ and „new“ media
Knowledge networking within and outside the company
Management of complexity
Agenda
Page 15 © Siemens AG Austria 2009. All rights reserved.
The GSD-dilemma for high-cost countries
Increasingcost pressure
Increasingcomplexity
Increasingvolatility
customer needs,integration in existing systems
GSD
global competition
cooperating with unknown
global competition
only the best
Higher complexity leads to higher costs
Top 3 challenges for GSD in our business
Increasing cost pressure
Increasing complexity of projects
Increasing volatility of organizations
Some of our experiences in coping with these challenges
Project communication using „old“ and „new“ media
Knowledge networking within and outside the company
Management of complexity
Agenda
Page 17 © Siemens AG Austria 2009. All rights reserved.
How to reduce the offshoring cost barrier:Invest in communication and collaboration!
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 Collaboration Model
Cost
100% Cop, HC
100% Cop, LC
Offshoring Cost Barrier
Cdistr =Collaboration Maturity
Cdistr,mature
Ctotal = Cop + Cdistr
Cop
Cdistr
Cdistr,mature
Source: S. Lasser, M. Heiss, Proc. of IEEE IPCC, 2005
low collaboration maturity high distribution cost high offshoring cost barrier
The higher the communication maturity the lower the distribution costs
Source: Proceedings of the IEEE International Professional Communication Conference (IPCC 2005); ISBN: 0-7803-9028-8 Limerick, Ireland, 10-13 July 2005, Thread: Engineering Management, pp. 718-728.
Communication Challenges
inverse offshoring modelnew tendency
Page 18 © Siemens AG Austria 2009. All rights reserved.
Communication: proven “old” practice
Kickoff meetings are worth the investment (also in times of travel restrictions) – team members should meet at least once personally.
You have to deal with emotions on both sides:
“Am I supposed to help outsource my own work?”
“Why do we get only the boring stuff and little information?”
To achieve a high collaboration maturity for distributed teams requires trust and months / years of working together
The main drivers for collaboration maturity: Processes, communication and tools.
Page 19 © Siemens AG Austria 2009. All rights reserved.
As trust increases the productivity of GSD,staffing of GSD teams needs human intelligence
Where can I find the available people with the right skills at the right time for a low hourly rate?
Up-to-date company-wide data bases with skills profiles are desired (in middle Europe opposed by workers´ councils)
Such data-based people search seems to work already well for consultants (individual experts working loosely together)
In our experience the data-based approach does not work well for staffing of GSD teams (continuity, skills level, soft factors,...)
Challenges: Management of teams, locations, multi project management
Page 20 © Siemens AG Austria 2009. All rights reserved.
Communication: new media help a lot to overcome barriers – our research project with Daniela Damian
Scenario: distributed collaboration in development project with 17 team members at 3 sites (Project Management, Integration and Development in Vienna, Bratislava, Cluj)New communication media (Microsoft OCS) encouraged people to change the communication processes so that the desired increase of productivity was reached.
Changes: OCS incl. Video, number of meetings, organizational change (meeting culture),more conscious choice of synchronous or asynchronous media (task/media fit: ambiguity vs. uncertainty)
Improvements: Reduction of response time Reduction of solution time (due to „Presence Service“ and “Instant Messaging”
more awareness about the work of other team members) Increase of productivity of the team members Information Sharing Transparency about the process improvement
More details in the presentation by Daniela Damian and others this afternoon!
Page 21 © Siemens AG Austria 2009. All rights reserved.
Robust communication in natural language is a key factor – “English as a lingua franca”
In GSD projects people with different mother tongues and different cultural backgrounds are working together
In our projects almost nobody speaks English as a mother tongue, but everybody has to communicate in English
This topic is in our experience underestimated in the scientific discourse about GSD
Most prominent challenges for the robustness of communication: Requirements engineering Project management, meetings and meeting minutes Inquiry culture in daily work
More details in the presentation of Benedikt Lutz this afternoon
Top 3 challenges for GSD in our business
Increasing cost pressure
Increasing complexity of projects
Increasing volatility of organizations
Some of our experiences in coping with these challenges
Project communication using „old“ and „new“ media
Knowledge networking within and outside the company
Management of complexity
Agenda
Page 23 © Siemens AG Austria 2009. All rights reserved.
Knowledge Networking across the organization is not just a vision: it already works today
Example: Social Network AnalysisSiemens IT Solutions and Services,System Design and Engineering
„Who has helped you in your professional work during the last 12 months“
Page 24 © Siemens AG Austria 2009. All rights reserved.
Technoweb – company wide knowledge networking identify implicit knowledge via the activity stream of the appropriate expert
Brain
Face 2 Face
Voice
pers. E-mails
pers. Desktop
Proj. E-mails
Blogs, Microblogs, Wikis, CRM, CM, Intranet
Internet, publications
DIG
ITIZ
ED
NO
N D
IGIT
IZE
D
activity stream
visible
limited access
data privacy
not visible
low
er a
cces
sibi
lity
hig
her
acce
ssib
ility
hig
her
busi
ness
val
ue
low
er b
usin
ess
valu
e
identifiable
Page 25 © Siemens AG Austria 2009. All rights reserved.
Knowledge networking has a business impact on the project performance and the speed of new technology adoption
10 years of experience with TechnoWeb
Facts of TechnoWeb 534 knowledge networks 8072 members 634 technologies 3366 network services 38 countries
Examples for knowledge networks within TechnoWeb: RFID, Green IT, Car-2-X, Security, DEMS, Architecture, Remote Service, Modeling, Semantic Systems
Networks related to technology Focus on networks of experts Open for all employees Very low cost of operation
Key aspects of SIS TechnoWeb
Trend setting: 31.6 % of TW members are already in SIS top priority trends (analysis FY08)
Early/fast identification: Significant Improvement regarding availability/visibility of new technologies
Innovation: TechnoWeb members have a 7 times higher probability of a successful innovation idea.
Business impact
start small and evolve continuously (business demand driven) Hold barriers low for participation Balanced bottom up / top down approach
Page 26 © Siemens AG Austria 2009. All rights reserved.
The Siemens Technology Network Dashboard
TechnoWeb
2.0
Members
Network services/references
Abs
tract
Info
rmat
ion
Partn
erTo
ols
App
licat
ion
Eval
uatio
n
Coa
chin
gC
onsu
lting
Wor
ksho
psLi
tera
ture
Hel
pdes
kTr
aini
ngs
Pro
ject
sBe
st P
ract
.M
isce
llan.
Abst
ract
Abst
ract
Abs
tract
Abs
tract
Abs
tract
Abs
tract
Abst
ract
Abs
tract
rating +
Rating of network activity
Short description of technology/topic
Membercommunication
Services and experiences provided by
the network
Links & references to related content
Partner Networks
automatically emerging structure
Topics that are related to network
Incorporated Fast Technology Search
network members / experts. Links to personal
page
TechnoWeb 2.0 provides a globally integrated “Dashboard" for technology workers
Communities with related topics
Page 27 © Siemens AG Austria 2009. All rights reserved.
Microblogging: the simulated open-plan office
Microblogging...
• is a dynamic social bookmarking tool (at least one typical use caseof professional users)
• helps to separate the business stream (mailbox) from the knowledge stream (twitter): the business stream needs 100% to be read, elements of knowledge stream: only if the subject looks interesting / you have time
• increases the communication frequency compared to full blogs barrier much lower (less time required)
• supports the private/collaboration/social aspect (important for globally distributed teams)
• generates a digital activity stream which helps to identify implicit knowledge of experts
Page 28 © Siemens AG Austria 2009. All rights reserved.
Microblogging: lower barrier, higher frequency, and social relationship
following interesting persons
retweeting interesting messages
non-public replies
continuous search on “Enterprise
2.0“
continuous search on
“Open Innovation”
publishing 140 letters messages incl. link
0
5
10
15
20
25
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13
Reihe1
Number of Enterprise 2.0 tweetson June 11, 2009
25201510
50
00:00 04:00 08:00 12:00 16:00 20:00 24:00
Cappuccino law:80% coffee and
20% foam
Top 3 challenges for GSD in our business
Increasing cost pressure
Increasing complexity of projects
Increasing volatility of organizations
Some of our experiences in coping with these challenges
Project communication using „old“ and „new“ media
Knowledge networking within and outside the company
Management of complexity
Agenda
Page 30 © Siemens AG Austria 2009. All rights reserved.
Be an expert in managing complexity
Detecting complexity in the problem space vs. reducing it in the solution space
Usability Engineering: Prototyping, Standardization
Patterns in SW Architecture Architectural tactics Organizational patterns Metrics as useful indicators Responsibilities Agile development practices Safety nets: robust systems,
self healing systems Test driven development Impact analyses
Source: M. Heiss, St. Huber, B. Lutz, M. Arnhof: „Management of Complexity“, presented at the MIT-Europe conference on March 25, 2009
Topics of our recent study:
Top 3 challenges for GSD in our business
Increasing cost pressure
Increasing complexity of projects
Increasing volatility of organizations
Some of our experiences in coping with these challenges
Project communication using „old“ and „new“ media
Knowledge networking within and outside the company
Management of complexity
Conclusion
Agenda
Page 32 © Siemens AG Austria 2009. All rights reserved.
Conculsion: measures to cope with the GSD-dilemma
Increasingcost pressure
Increasingcomplexity
Increasingvolatility
customer needs,integration in existing systems
GSD
global competition
cooperating with unknown
global competition
only the best
higher complexity leads to higher costs
Increase the communication maturity (incl. new technologies) Increase the knowledge networking maturity Increase the maturity in managing complexity
Page 33 © Siemens AG Austria 2009. All rights reserved.
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Michael Heiss Global Vice President for Knowledge, Innovation and Technology
Siemens AG ÖsterreichSiemens IT Solutions and ServicesGudrunstraße 11 1100 Vienna AustriaPhone +43-5-1707-46560 Fax +43-5-1707-56591 Mobile +43-664-8855 1526 mailto:[email protected]
Blog: http://twitter.com/heisss
Fotos: http://www.flickr.com/groups/visualization/
Slides: http://www.slideshare.net/heisss
Thank you for your attention!
Top 3 challenges for GSD in our business
Increasing cost pressure
Increasing complexity of projects
Increasing volatility of organizations
Some of our experiences in coping with these challenges
Project communication using „old“ and „new“ media
Knowledge networking within and outside the company
Management of complexity
Conclusion
Appendix
Appendix
Page 35 © Siemens AG Austria 2009. All rights reserved.
The Agile Software Development paradigmHeavy team – light methodology, high productivity
Less documentation – personal communication is getting more important (difficult for dislocated teams)
Product owner: direct customer involvement (the biggest challengefor dislocated teams)
Beware of “daily SCRUM” phone conferences at midnight!
Our experience for success:local customer proxy, stablestructures of teams, knowingthe partners personally
Source: Siemens IT Solutions and Services SDE System Engineering Method SEM
Page 36 © Siemens AG Austria 2009. All rights reserved.
Balance between local and global responsibilities
In our experience, a balanced approach of global and local responsibilities on project and organization level is the key for success
Organizationalpatterns of best practiceare a good guide
Many patterns are grounded in“soft topics”
see e.g. our “Project Insights” or the recent “Adrenalin Junkies” of the Atlantic Systems Guild
Page 37 © Siemens AG Austria 2009. All rights reserved.
Cross project communication: Knowledge networking
Internal consultancy centers (“Support Centers”) – the first three hours of effort for free!
Learning Network – internal training for own technology and methodology topics: Standard -> customized -> consultancy -> work in project
TechnoWeb: A knowledge networking tool (“Know-who database” instead of Know-how databases), urgent request mechanism
Page 38 © Siemens AG Austria 2009. All rights reserved.
Example: discovering the blog post of Prof. McAfee (Harvard University) in less than 2 hours after he published it
25201510
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00:00 04:00 08:00 12:00 16:00 20:00 24:00
2.0: Technology is used to broadcast information publicly to people both known and unknown
1.0: Technology is used to transmit information privately to known people
Example from McAfee‘s blog athttp://andrewmcafee.org/blog/?p=871
June 10, 2009:18:13 McAfee, Boston18:19 RT New Jersey18:29 RT Canada18:46 RT Singapore19:01 RT San Francisco19:10 RT Stuttgart19:30 RT Washington20:08 RT Vienna20:25 RT HawaiiRT…retweet