I have the fortune to live almost next to a really good place to have lunch. They have some awesome dishes, all the guests are okay people and the atmosphere is good. So I go there a lot, almost always with a book.
Over lunch today, I started reading a book called Agile Management for Software Engineering and it immediately felt good. To quote a bit from the first paragraph of the introduction:
As Barry Boehm points out, bad management costs money. These days it also costs jobs. Senior executives, perplexed by the spiraling costs of software development and dpressed by poor results, poor quality, poor service, and lack of transparancy are simply shruggin their shoulders and saying, “if the only way this can be done is badly, then let me do it badly at a fraction of the cost.” The result is a switch to offshore development and layoffs. With the state of the economy in 2003, what was a trickel has become a positive trend. If the trend isn’t to become a flod, management in the information technology business needs to get better.
The author (David J. Anderson) goes on to talk about how wrong decisions like offshoring software development can be if the methodology and software process haven’t been reviewed thoroughly first. I’ve been thinking about this for years. There are interesting analogies to be spotted in traditional industries and the software industry with respect to changes in the process.
David in the book argues that shifts seen in the automotive industry in the 20th century (especially in the manufacturing process), might still be ahead of us in the software industry and I can’t do anything but agree! To quote the book a little further:
What if software development resembled the manufacturing efficiency of 1925? It is just possible that Agile methods represent the beginning of an understanding of how to build software better, faster and cheaper. Is it just possible that there is a latent economic improvement in the order of 95% waiting to be unleashed?
I hope the remainder of the book is going to be just as good as the beginning!
Agile Management for Software Engineering - David J. Anderson (Prentice Hall, 2004)
He is absolutley right about offshore outsourcing vis a vis management. Well managed manufacturing companies is the U.S., anyway and I suspect in Europe as well, are growing and making money at a very nice rate. Others are trying to compensate for poor management with cheap labor. Most of the outsourcing companies are finding that they cannot manage global supply chains any better than they managed factories.
I take issue with his history, however. The great booms in automotive manufacturing efficiency took place first from 1910-1915 at Henry Ford’s HIghland Park plant; then at Toyota from 1950-1965. In 1925 GM was rolling out the Sloan management scheme driven by the DuPont ROI model, and GM accountant Donaldson Brown was making his reputation as the “Father of Modern Cost Accounting”. Between them, Sloan, DuPont and Brown virtually detroyed manufacturing - it just took the world 50 years to realize that. First a wprld wide Depression in the 1930’s, then World War II, then 30 years for Europe and Asia to put themselves back together. As soon as they did, global competition has eaten the Sloan managed companies alive.
Henry Ford rolled out the Model T in 1908. The great manufacturing boom - when lean manufacturing was actually born - began when they moved to the new plant in 1910. The author’s point about Agile Software is on the mark, but he should have compared it to automotive in 1908. Or perhaps to 1948 when Toyota was on the eve of their great boom.
That minor quarrel aside, I highly recommend Anderson’s book.
Hi,
You may also be interested in my new book “Offshoring IT Services
I agree with the Author, the root cause of every problem is the poor management, no matter its software or manufacturing. I would advice to check the attitude of the offshore development partner before outsourcing and then check some references. this can make you take informed decision, rest is destiny. Some good people turn out to be bad and some bad people due to experience become the best ones.