Developing a knowledge-based perspective on coordination: The case of global software projects

Julia Kotlarsky, Paul C. van Fenema, and Leslie P. Willcocks. Developing a knowledge-based perspective on coordination: The case of global software projects. Inf. Manage., 45(2):96–108, March 2008.

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Abstract:- 

    This paper is about the explanation of various types of activities which are needed to increase the coordination between different sites in a global software development scenario. The authors have created a model based on these activities. The model is a pure theoretical model with no mathematics involved in it. The model consists of different types of mechanisms necessary for achieving coordination. The authors have proposed four types of mechanisms. They are organization design, work-based, technology-based, social (inter-personal) mechanisms. The developed by authors is applied on two projects belonging to two companies. The two companies are SAP and Baan. They observed whether the proposed model by them gives the correct result or not. The model gave the result that the project of SAP would be successful and of Baan would be unsuccessful. In reality as well, same results happened proving that the model proposed by the authors was correct.


Discussions:-

    The authors have proposed a model for achieving coordination. The model takes into consideration different types of mechanisms involved. Each of these mechanisms in turn has several activities to be followed. The first mechanism is of organization design. This mechanism states that organization structure has to be formed properly. The designation of employees should be in a hierarchical format. Coordination has to be there among people at the same level and for this to be achieved, team size should be small. Whenever contact has to be established among different teams, the contact person of the teams should take up responsibility of establishing the communication between different teams.

    The next mechanism is of work-based mechanism. In this mechanism, it is desired that work is divided correctly among the employees with no possibility of over work or under work. In this way, employees will have equal responsibilities to handle with no sense of envy among the peers. In this way, each employee of the project will be having some defined amount of knowledge of the project and hence when anyone wants to know something about the code, the person is known who is responsible. The organization also has to step in and provide standard tools and should encourage its employees to follow standard methodologies and specifications.

    The next mechanism is of technology-based mechanism. In this type of mechanism, it is desired that organizations provide maximum support of technology which will aid in coordination and communication. It is desired that shared databases are provided among different teams. Next, the use of video conferences, forums, blogs and chats should be encouraged among the members of team belonging to different teams to ensure proper coordination is achieved. The authors also suggest the use of technologies which support global software development.

    The last mechanism is social (inter-personal) mechanism. This mechanism is about achieving inter-team spirit among different teams. For this, it is encouraged that before the start of project, the teams from different parts of the world come together and spend some time understanding the different team’s cultures, ethics, behaviors etc.

    The authors suggest that the mechanism of organization design should facilitate knowledge flow or establish a communication channel among different teams. The mechanism of work-based should help in making knowledge explicit which means there has to be only one responsible person for a piece of code. The technology-based mechanism should help in amplifying knowledge which means the gap between different teams should be bridged by means of technology. The social mechanism should help in building social relations among the team-members of different team.

  
    This proposed model was applied on the individual project of two companies. The two companies were SAP and Baan. In case of SAP, all the activities proposed by authors were followed and hence the authors predicted that the project should be a success. The other company was of Baan. Many activities proposed by authors were not followed. The only activities which were majorly followed belonged to technology-based mechanism. The reason why Baan didn’t follow all the activities was that the company was not financially stable and had to cut down lot of expenses. The model predicted that the project to be developed by Baan would be a failure. After the projects were completed, it was found that the project of SAP was successful and of Baan was unsuccessful.

     To achieve proper coordination between different teams in a global software development project, it is necessary that organization follow all the different types of mechanisms which the authors have proposed. The mechanisms are organization-based, work-based, technology-based and social (inter-personal) mechanisms. Coordination is one of the most important factors to be considered in when organizations are going for global software development.