Shield: Product Development in a Distributed Team

The Indian Perspective

A week after his meeting with the Los Angeles-based engineers, Howard was on a plane to Bangalore. As he settled in for the 20-hour flight, he thought about distance issues. He understood that it was easier — particularly when creating software — to work with people who were located in the same building. But he also knew that many other companies were experimenting with, and succeeding in, working with offshore developers. He himself had successfully led virtual teams collaborating between the US and Singapore. However, he

noticed an important difference between the two projects: the one being developed in Singapore involved a well-defined task on a known problem, while Shield was a rapid- development project, and required a lot of creativity in problem solving.

Yet, outsourcing seemed the wave of the future. In the mid-1990s, salaries for programmers and systems analysts in India were one-eighth to one-sixth what they were in the US. This represented huge savings for companies that could successfully manage the outsourcing process. To meet this demand, Indian software exports grew from US$500 million in 1995 to US$4 billion in 1999.² In 2000, there were 280,000 people working in the software industry in India.³ Over time, India began moving from “body-shopping” activities to product development. Body-shopping is the practice of Indian firms sending developers to Western clients’ sites to supplement the workforce. Indeed, some industry leaders began to identify niches and areas of specialization for Indian companies, and some of the larger firms, such as WIPRO and Infosys, set up their own research divisions. WIPRO’s president, Azim Premji, was convinced that Bangalore’s high-tech entrepreneurs had the skills and energy to take on anybody in the world. The managing director of Infosys, Nandan Nilekani, pointed out that the generation of young, successful Indians, who had never lived under imperialism, was the first to do away with thousands of years of poverty and social stasis: “Our kids don’t see why they should play second fiddle to America.”⁴
Of course, outsourcing was not without its detractors. As outsourcing took hold, salaries for engineers in India began to creep slowly higher, leading some people to publicly question America’s ability to remain the global technology leader when it was sending much of its work offshore. In fact, Howard remembered being at a recent meeting of the Information Technology Association of America when the group’s president had asserted that if the US wanted to be the global leader, high-tech companies couldn’t keep exporting the most challenging assignments. “Eventually,” he had said, “these countries will become competitors.”
Howard was greeted at the airport by one of Shield’s project managers, Jawal, who expressed his pleasure at having someone visit from the American side. On the car ride to the office complex, the pair talked about the project. Jawal explained the team’s excitement at the start of the project, when they had learned they would own certain parts of the code. He explained that back in 1996, companies in India were not getting really meaty projects, but rather the standard coding work. “That was really wonderful for us,” he said. “It was such a boost.”
As Howard listened, he noticed that Jawal was speaking about the excitement of the project in the past tense.
Howard was surprised by the modernity and style of Professional’s offices. Indeed, the site in Bangalore was not unlike an office park one might see in Silicon Valley. Like the Los Angeles offices, this complex was open and airy; engineers huddled around computer screens and talked animatedly as they discussed their tasks.

2. 
   Source: NASSCOM.
   
3. 
   Asia Times, December 7, 2000. 4 Wired, March 2000, p. 172.
   

In the conference room, Howard met with the 13 engineers who were working on the project. As in his meeting with the American team, he laid out his desire to understand how the relationship was going, and how it could be improved.

The first developer spoke up.
“The most difficult thing about working with the American team is the delay in response. The lack of rapid answers and clarifications hinders collaboration,” he said. “Whatever queries we have, they never have time to read the design documents or to give answers. There is often a 15- to 20-day delay.”
Another developer added, “The frequent changes in the design and requirements make our jobs very hard. Also, the division of work is not clear.”
An Indian manager expressed his and his colleagues’ reactions to the fact that their work was not being used. “It was good when [the American manager] used to come to Bangalore often. We’d have discussions every other day, or we’d talk for three hours, so we knew what was happening. But after a while, all that stopped, so we felt very much left on our own. Plus, [the American group] weren’t using what we were developing. People got discouraged; many left. There are many other opportunities out there.”
Most of the developers agreed that since the departure of Randan, who was charged with serving as liaison, they had not had much interaction with the US team.
Howard was shocked to hear that the Indians felt so alienated from the Shield team. He was even more disturbed to hear that many of the best programmers were leaving the project because they felt they were not being properly utilized. At that time, Bangalore was experiencing high levels of engineer mobility among its continually expanding software services firms.
He probed further. “And when you went to work in the US, what were your experiences like there?” he asked.
A young developer answered, “To be honest, we were kept at arm’s length. At least that was my experience,” she said.
Echoing her sentiments, another developer explained, “We were there, but no one really came to talk to us, to introduce us to the other team members. We were sort of stuck in our offices. Once, they invited us all out to lunch, and the Americans all sat at one table and we sat at another. It was really uncomfortable.”
Since several of the engineers who had voluntarily left Shield were still working at Professional, Howard was able to meet with them to find out why they had chosen to leave.
Anjana explained that she had worked for Shield, but had moved to another project that “gives me responsibility. … I was with Shield for two years. I wasn’t getting my growth. We didn’t get that communication from them. … We were just sliding.”
Another engineer echoed her frustration with the situation. “We were the owner of the module; now it’s slowly moved to the US. I feel I’m not utilized properly. I’m not directly

contributing to the product. [The project lead] tries to keep us engaged, but … it cannot last for a long time, just reading books. You get a doubt: why do they need us?”
After the meetings, back in his hotel room, Howard began thinking through some solutions to the “Indian problem”. He felt strongly that distance and lack of coordination were the two main culprits. When he was back in Los Angeles, he would institute several new initiatives to address the problems.