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GDD-Designs

Global Development and Delivery Scenarios

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The Global Development and Delivery Scenario

In 2006-2008 I developed scenarios for the IBM Rational Global Development and Delivery offering 

The GDD scenarios outline the steps for a client that is transforming from a single-site development team to a global delivery organization. This scenario was chosen based on its business importance to our sponsors and to the overall design of the DGG solution.

The design scenario covered the following acts

  • Setup the Distributed Environment (Unique to GDD)
  • Develop a new application release (Business Driven Development Green Thread)
  • Fix a problem in the first release (System in Trouble Green Thread)

Scenario Synopsis

The GDD scenario is a branch of the JK Enterprise scenario developed by the IBM Rational Green Threads team. The scenario is using a  financial banking context and a new Account Opening application.  

The GDD storyline starts with the delivery of the first release of the Account Opening application. The development team of 11+ has been local to a single site in the US with a Central tool deployment topology. The team is preparing for the second release with a larger team. JKE has acquired a company in the EU of 5 developers that will join the Account Opening team. Also, a team of 10+ developers contracted through GSI in India will take over the support for the first Account Opening application release while the US and EU teams start developing the second release.

The teams need to

  • Bring up a multisite backbone with the new development sites in the EU and with GSI.
  • Hand-off the Account Opening first release code to GSI.
  • Establish a change management process with the JKE and GSI teams for the support of the first release
  • Establish a requirement management process with the JKE US and EU teams for the second release.

 

The scenario assesses the gaps and drives the design for improvements in the GDD solution.

  • The need to quickly deploy the development infrastructure to new teams to make them produce from day one. 
  • The need for WAN tools that can support all key developer use-cases in CC, CQ, and UCM.
  • The need for centralized builds.
  • The need for distribution of central builds for local testing.
  • The need to run change management for a maintenance release and for new development.
  • The need to ensure asset security and isolation of maintenance new development projects.
  • The need for secure connections over removed connections.

Scenario Personas

US

    • Overall Project Manager
    • Business Analyst
    • Architect
    • Developer
    • Test Engineer
    • Integration Developer
    • Build Engineer
    • Enterprise Architect
    • IT Administrator
    • Development Tools Administrator

 

EU

  • Business Analyst
    (for EU market)
  • Architect / Lead Developer
  • Test Engineer
  • Build Engineer
  • IT Administrator

GSI

  • Project Manager
  • Architect / Developer
  • Test Engineer
  • Integration Developer
  • Build Engineer
  • Enterprise Architect
  • IT Administrator
  • Development Tools Administrator

The GDD Scenario As-Is State

The JKE development team is using a single side local topology deployment of the IBM Rational GDD solution

  • Rational Portfolio Manager for project management
  • ClearCase for source code management
  • ClearQuest for change management
  • BuildForge for software builds
  • SystemTest for quality management
  • Client tools for modeling and test execution
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Global Development and Delivery Scenarios
The GDD scenario As-Is state

The GDD Scenario To-Be State

The JKE development team is targeting a centralized hub topology deployment of the IBM Rational GDD solution and WAN access for EU and GSI team members.

  • Rational Portfolio Manager for project management in the US
  • ClearCase Web for source code management in EU and GSI
  • ClearQuest Web for change management in EU and GSI
  • BuildForge for central software builds in the US
  • SystemTest for quality management in the US
  • Client tools for modeling and test execution in the US, EU, and GSI. Test artifacts under SCM control.
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Global Development and Delivery Scenarios
The GDD scenario To-Be state

Major ‘Setup’ Thread Steps

    • Organize IT infrastructure and development tools for GDD
      • Connectivity, workspaces, access rights, tools deployment
    • Establish distributed development process
      • Internal and with GSI
      • Workflow, governance, metrics
    • Establish project plans
    • Provision artifacts to practitioners
    • Implement key practical/functional distributed workflows and verify

 

 


Global Software Development and Delivery: Trends and Challenges
Learn more about GDD trends and challenges.

Global Development and Delivery Design

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Global Development and Delivery Design

In 2006-2008 I performed research, scenario design, and defined the user experience strategy for the IBM Rational Global Development and Delivery offering 

What is Global Development and Delivery

Global development profiles organizations with a distributed team dispersed across towns, across the borders, or overseas. Teams may be Onsite, Nearshore, Offshore, or Outsourced. Generally, hybrid structures are used. Onsite and Nearshore and often internal staff. Nearshore and Offshore are often directly owned subsidiaries or joint partnerships. Outsourced covers contracts with the service provider that supplies supplemental resources or assumes responsibility for all or part of the software development lifecycle.

While the user of global resources often lowers the cost of staff, additional pains arise. Mismatched and Misunderstood Processes. Communication Issues. Cultural Issues. Decrease Productivity. Increased Rework. Mistakes in Work-Transfer. Higher Coordination Costs. Political Issues. Security IP Protection. Lack of Project Visibility, Agility, and Control. Unable to Measure Success.

Support for GDD best practices can change the equation. Process, Workflow, and Development challenges can be addressed by improving team efficiency across cultures and geographies by automating the full lifecycle processes and development tools. Communication and Collaboration challenges can be improved by accelerating project success through collaborative team-based development and a workplace environment. Project Management & Portfolio Management challenges can be improved by providing global visibility through accurate project metrics and reporting.

Researching Global Development and Delivery

I researched global organizations in the US, Europe, and India that depend on global development and delivery or deliver outsourcing services to uncover the root causes of the challenges reported above. The following root causes were identified.

  • Communications issues – time lag, cultural
  • Requirements not well-defined upfront
  • The requirements management process does not provide a feedback loop or method for communicating changing / evolving requirements
  • Requirements well defined, but not well communicated
  • Organizational issues – lack of motivation
  • Process (handoff, delivery, change management) not well understood – time spent trying to figure out who does what
  • Additional project management overhead
  • Mismatched and unsynchronized configuration management processes and systems – resulting in classic configuration management problems – work to know what files to work on, what is the latest build, why did the build break, etc.
  • The end product, not the right product (requirements mismatch)
  • The end product has a high defect density
  • The offshore testing process not aligned with onsite needs
  • Requirements changes not reflected in product
  • Enhancement requests not reflected in product
  • Poorly defined deliverables
  • Wrong versions delivered for integration and deployment

Conclusions on User Research

The metrics from the research show that

  • Productivity may decrease by up to 50%
  • Typically localized project rework is 20%-30%
  • Distributed development: 50%-100% rework in initial projects

The research also shows two emerging client topologies

  • Centralized
    • Single centralized server hub
    • Local LAN access – thick clients
    • Remote WAN access – thin web clients
  • Distributed/Replicated
    • Multisite backbone with server hubs
    • Local LAN access – thick clients
    • Remote WAN access – thin web clients
    • Integration with open source SCM tools like Subversion

The research identified new trends impacting our GDD design strategy

    • The enterprise development model is challenging
    • Consolidate infrastructure to centralized hubs
    • Connect global teams with remote access
    • Connect global teams into supply chains
    • Be aware of competitive pressure from open source

 

Needs on GDD called out by our Board of Advisors

  • Need to launch new projects quickly
  • Need to provision new global sites quickly
  • Collaboration between distributed teams are key to success

Formulating a GDD User Experience Strategy 

Based on my analysis we formulated a GDD UX strategy

  • 7 Views identifying the key aspects of global delivery
    • Collaboration
    • Governance
    • Access
    • Administration and Scaleability
    • Security
    • Usability

  • GDD Drivers identifying the stakeholders and their incentives
    • Portfolio drivers
    • Project drivers
    • IT drivers

 

We also formulated a hill for GDD that ‘Global organizations can grow development capacity and achieve cost savings by providing a centralized the development infrastructure with remote access to global teams’

This UX strategy was driving our

  • Design scenarios for GDD
  • Product strategies approved by the GDD Offering Team
  • Solution and product design for GDD
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Global Development and Delivery Design
7 view of GDD.
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Global Development and Delivery Design
GDD drivers vs DGG views.

Formulating GDD Design Scenarios

We identify four key scenarios for GDD. Our sponsors ranked the importance. 

Priority: Improve setup of a distributed project 

  • Manage team, people, and plans
  • Provision tools, workspaces, assets, and access
  • Integrate team platforms and workflows
  • Establish team collaboration

 

Priority: Improve execution of a distributed project

  • Integrate a distributed project workplace

 

Manage the business process of outsourcing

  • Align portfolio and global innovation structures
  • Collaborate from proposal to execution

 

Govern outsourced service

  • Track key performance indicators
  • Govern contracted service performance

GDD Improvements Measured

The 7 views of GDD were used as KPIs for the GDD solution improvements and the remaining gaps were tracked.

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Global Development and Delivery Design
Tracking GDD solution improvements across planned releases..

 


Gartner survey of 219 clients who outsourced projects offshore and domestically – half are expecting to fail to deliver anticipated savings.