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The Smart Techie was renamed Siliconindia India Edition starting Feb 2012 to continue the nearly two decade track record of excellence of our US edition.

March - 2009 - issue > Management

Overcoming Blinkered Vision

Srinivas Konidena
Saturday, February 28, 2009
Srinivas Konidena
Background
Products are of varied nature. Some of the factors that bring about the variation are size (build size, functional breadth, workflow complexity), the market they address (shrink wrap, Web offering, enterprise solution) and their revenue models (one-time sale, pay-as-you-go, act as media). Each of these factors comes out in different magnitudes and a combination of these determines the nature of a product. In addition to these, aspects like geographical distribution of teams that contribute to building the product play a significant role. One of the most critical components that go into making a successful product is achieving efficiency in software product development with the often talked about goal of 'delivering within time, quality, and budget' Software development has matured over the years and in the process has produced several development methodologies. This has enabled the development owner to choose an appropriate methodology considering the various factors and the context of development.

These methodologies look at the big picture, split the entire process into sub-areas, and provide detailed processes that optimize them.

Challenge -Blinkered Vision One of the key decisions that the development owners make is about choosing the right development process and structuring the groups accordingly. This involves striking a good balance between keeping focus on the big picture and obtaining efficiencies in the sub-processes. While it is easier to manage when the group size is smaller, it manifests into a bigger challenge as the development groups, including marketing, service, and so on grow larger.

In large development teams, there is a strong need for clear team structure. On a practical note, one would see in organizations team leads, managers managing three or four teams, and even senior managers getting to manage a number of these large teams. While one may argue over the need for several layers of management or about the need to have a flat structure, we see this elaborate structure exist more often. For teams that need to continue for a fairly extended period of time, unless there is enough leadership bandwidth, it is difficult to sustain the passion and motivation to consistently deliver. In many cases, especially in large organizations, structures with several layers already exist and it may not be possible to dismantle the existing structures, even if it is desired, and form ones that are more ideal.

To ensure that all the teams perform to their optimal levels, team goals are set and tracked on a continual basis. The teams are led by the leaders who themselves are strong contributors and have evolved to this role due to their excellent abilities in managing their deliveries. They also are specialists in their areas of work (like development, business analysis, and testing) and constantly look at improving efficiencies in their teams for optimal deliveries. As desired, these teams work towards the goals and put in their best to make sure that their goals are met or exceeded. In an ideal scenario, each of these team goals should roll up into the overall product goal, although it is very difficult to achieve.

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