The Kiev Experiment

"Contemporary software development is built on communication"


With probably the most intriguing title for a presentation, this presentation sounded promising.

In short, it was the history of UBS's quest for the perfect software engineering solution, the problems they experienced and the lessons learned.

Development at UBS started as one team releasing good quality software very slowly. As the team succeeded, they got asked to do more and more by the company and they grew with the work load.
The first attempt at expansion saw the introduction of functional groups, and by 2008 all the teams were single competence teams working at different rates. Hard, difficult times.

They looked at the offshore model and in the first instance augmented teams with individuals working remotely from Kiev. Trust and respect were not high. The offshore teams got low quality work - bugfixes, unit tests, the sort of thing you shouldn't be giving to highly skilled, motivated people.

It took a while, lots of false starts and and the slow and gradual build up of trust, but eventually trust was built up and Kiev got their first functional group.

A change of speaker, and Sascha from the original Kiev team started off with the quote at the top of this post.

The story of the evolution of the communication between the teams was engaging and thoughtful.
Polycom devices id not engage - they tried putting photos of the overseas team on the walls - nice idea, but still no engagement.
Skype brought improvements, but no capability to work collaboratively with documents and real ideation.

Now, they have inter-active whiteboards and plasma screens that act as windows into each other's offices. To talk to someone in the other office, stand at the whiteboard and have a conversation. Star-Trek style.

The most important advance, though has been the bilateral rotation. London go to Kiev, Kiev go to London and work in each other's teams. The exchange of knowledge, respect and trust has been degrees better, but the most important advance has been the cultural exchange. The deeper understanding of each other's problems and advantages.

This post does the presentation no credit at all. It was really quite humbling and inspiring.
And if there is one thing from it I am determined to try at least once back in Berlin it is the rotating joint architecture projects. Incredibly detailed knowledge exchange, and depth of understanding and vision that come out of it.
Totally charged!