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The Cultural Impact on Multi-cultural Software Development Teams

This paper examines how cultural factors influence software engineering practices in global development projects. It utilizes Geert Hofstede's cultural dimensions—Power Distance Index (PDI), Uncertainty Avoidance Index (UAI), and Individualism Index (IDV)—to explore their effects on team dynamics and project management. The study is based on observations from two projects over four years, highlighting the importance of cultural awareness and adaptability. Recommendations include distributing leadership roles globally and employing prototyping to manage uncertainty effectively.

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The Cultural Impact on Multi-cultural Software Development Teams

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  1. The Software Engineering Impacts of Cultural Factors on Multi-cultural Software Development Teams.ByGreg Borchers25th International Conference on Software Engineering, 2003 p540-548Poster by:Olman Hernández January 17th, 2005

  2. Executive Summary • Paper describes the observations of how some cultural factors impacted the software engineering practices implemented on a global development project. • Cultural factors utilized in the paper are defined by Geert Hofstede in his book “Culture’s Consequences”. • Power Distance Index • Uncertainty Avoidance Index • Individualism Index • Author recognizes that rigorous software processes CANNOT overcome the power of the cultural layer. • The overall recommendations are : • To be culturally aware • Adapt and adjust the expectations to the realities of cultural impacts

  3. Introduction • Study is based on 2 separate development projects over a 4 year span • Project team was globally dispersed • Japan – Parent Company • US – Research Lab leading the projects • India – Development groups both internally and external vendor • Author served as technical lead and PM roles in different phases on both projects • Based on the work of Geert Hofstede • Industrial Psychologist at IBM • Study based on data from over 100,000 surveys in 40 countries • Looks at attitude of people towards their jobs along numerous dimensions of culture • Dimensions expressed in terms of indexes

  4. Power Distance (PDI) • India 77 Japan 54 U.S.A 40 • Identifies the way in which people think about equality and relationships with superiors and subordinates. • Low values of PDI - there is little or no distinction among hierarchy of an organization. Individuals are almost expected to raise concerns and express their own opinion • High values of PDI - the boss has great authority over subordinates. Superiors issue directives and expect subordinates to follow • This becomes an issue when utilizing a management approach “team of respected peers” where push back on issues is expected • Conflict about expectations of leadership • Recommendation: software project leadership be dispersed and each location have their local leaders

  5. Uncertainty Avoidance (UAI) • Japan 92 U.S.A 46 India 40 • Explores people’s attitudes towards tolerance for uncertainty about the future, risky situations, ambiguity, and control. • Low index culture are more risk takers, embrace change, more accepting of new ideas • High index culture try to reduce uncertainty through coping mechanisms like rigorous adherence to waterfall model, restrictive change control, wider consensus, and elaborate process to contemplate all possibilities. • Impacted design, analysis, documentation, up-front planning, project management and tracking • Recommendation: help avoid uncertainty through the use of prototyping; utilize detailed tracking and reporting mechanisms

  6. Individualism (IDV) • U.S.A 91 India 48 Japan 46 • Focus on the perception of individualism versus collectivist. • Low index cultures - the welfare of the group is above the individual • High index cultures - people are primarily concerned about personal achievement, ambition, expect to have their own opinions • Influence the formation and continuance of teams. • Impacts the ability to form strong bonds among members and act cohesively, creates “Star performers” • Single out an individual performance may have big impact on team depending on the index. • Recommendation: Be aware of cultural differences during performances reviews

  7. Areas impacted by culture • Software Architecture • May be culturally influenced • Design approach varies • Example on how abstractions are chosen • Configuration Management • Value on having centralized configuration management with public announcements. • Work structure can be defined by boundaries but will become issue when type of work crosses these boundaries like in performance tuning, bug fixing, integration.

  8. Paper Critique • Strength • - Recognition that there is a cultural factor that impacts development projects • - Recommendations are valuable and should be explored • - The author is not trying to stereotype individuals • Weaknesses • - Lack of description of the behaviors and problems confronted in order to validate the conclusions • - Author seems to ignore other factors such as communication, organizational culture, team culture, and professional culture • -Problem can also be cause by different levels of Process Maturity across sites and organizations

  9. Questions • 1-Briefly define the 3 cultural factors described on the paper? • 2-What are some of the areas impacted by the cultural factors? • 3-Do cultural differences affect software professionals?

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