Shield: Product Development in a Distributed Team

The US Perspective

After reviewing the executive summary, Howard asked Sun Ho to meet with him. From Howard’s perspective, there was something missing in the report. He saw that between 1996 and 1999, 90% of Shield’s development had taken place in India, but as they neared the end of 1999, the majority of the work was now being done in the US.
Howard wanted to know what had happened in the team over the past few weeks.
“Well, basically, our newly hired US-based engineers don’t want to work with the Indian team anymore,” Sun Ho replied.
“Did they give you any reasons?” Howard asked.
“They have told me they prefer working with people in the same locations and that they don’t trust the Indians.”
Howard was taken aback by the second reason. He certainly understood the preference among software developers for working with collocated colleagues, particularly for creative tasks like this one, which demanded numerous interactions. But not “trusting” the Indians was something else altogether.
Howard worried that the problem was more serious than he had originally thought. What if this lack of trust — an “us versus them” situation — was escalating to the point of non- cooperation? He had noticed in his casual observations of the US-based team that they were working on the same modules that were assigned to the Indian team. In addition, he had witnessed several instances when US-based developers re-created designs of modules based on the code sent from India.

“So what’s going on?” Howard asked Sun Ho. “From what I can tell, we’re paying the Indian group to work on this project. Why is the US group doing work on all the modules?”

Sun Ho shifted in his chair. “Well,” he responded nervously, “it just seems that a lot of the folks here would prefer not to work with the Indians.”
“Are you saying the Indians aren’t doing their jobs well?” Howard asked.
“I really don’t know,” replied Sun Ho, “but I’ve heard things, you know, that they don’t turn things around fast enough, or that they seem off-base with some of their suggestions. It’s nothing against them. I just think everyone would be happier working on the project here.”
“Do you agree?” Howard asked.
“I don’t really know,” he responded. “There’s clearly a problem. I think Randan had a very complete historical perspective, but I’m pretty new to this, and I’m just not close enough to know the specifics.”
Howard offered a suggestion: “I think the only way we’re going to get the specifics is to bring in the entire US team and discuss what’s going on.”