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East vs. West: Culture and Distributed Development
CowboyRobot writes "ACM's Queue has an article entitled, Culture Surprises in Remote Software Development Teams
that reviews differences in cultures and explores the impact they have on distributed software development teams. From the article: "In Western societies, decisions are made on the basis of input from those involved. In cultures with greater hierarchies, group members assume an authority will decide and they are only to enact the decision." Some stereotypes and some common sense, but I recognized myself in the descriptions of the 'typical American'."
When I first started reading the article, I figured they were talking about New York versus California. I've worked on bi-coastal projects, and the cultural differences in how things get decided (and even coding styles) are palpable.
"...At the end of the videoconference, the Americans immediately disconnected the call. The French and Germans continued for another five minutes wishing a departing French teammate well in his retirement, and reminiscing about good times. The Europeans viewed the American behavior as rude and insensitive. The Americans viewed time as money, focusing on the cost of the videoconference. In other countries, entire meetings are devoted to establishing relationships, without conducting the core of the task at all."
Building relationships is a strong thing. Time is money but with a good repor you can get a lot more done easily. This is a time and money saver too. Just not as easily trackable of one. And not in the short term but over the long haul of a project. It especially great if the project is going to last severa years.
Evolution or ID?
These cultural differences aren't exactly minor, and I think they can have a real impact on how teams work together. I've worked in multicultural teams, and the way the team is built into a unit is by getting to know the individuals over time. This process happens much more easily when everyone is in the same team room working together.
Something that many companies don't seem to consider when they send jobs to other countries, or split the work between different teams in different countries is that without the face to face interaction it's much harder to get to know the other people. These cultural problems would show up in reduced productivity. Rather than being worked out and adjusted for, cultural differences would have a real chance of becoming a serious issue. It might look tempting to companies to send work out to cheaper countries, but the costs can be accrued in other ways than in just salaries.
This is America, damnit. Speak Spanish!
Depends on what side you are and how you see yourself.
If you read the article thouroughly you will notice that it talks mainly about how different cultures see each other...
People from the East will see Americans as rude while the Americans themself find it normall to argue with an superiour.
On the other side the Americans will see the Easteners as sheepish for not arguing in public. It says nothing about wheter the discussion actually takes place, just about were and with whom (private or whole world).
Jeroen
Secure messaging: http://quickmsg.vreeken.net/
"East" and "West" are terrible descriptions. California is the most West, so it's kinda East. What about Hawaii? Australia? South Africa? The real difference is how old the society is. China has a very old society. So do Jews. Both societies are marked by lots of negotiation. Texas has a new society, as does Alaska, where individuals can get away with big moves. As societies gain collective experience, roles become established, forms have more persistence, communications are more complex and referential. While new societies take more risks, unencumbered by the lessons of past failures.
As "civilization" has generally moved West across Eurasia and the Americas, while largely surviving culturally in earlier establishments, the "East" (starting at the Asian Pacific coast) is older than the "West". Of course, major paradigm shifts and even genocides have distorted even that simple gradient. And the 20th Century's cataclysm migration and telecommunications means that the meme pool has a whirlpool, swirling the cultural codes around the globe. But actual mores are encoded deep. So there is a persistent ghost of the underlying gradient. Nowadays, individuals can choose how traditional or neo they want to be in their lives. And the lack of geographic rhyme and reason is making front lines of conflict everywhere, with new syntheses in every neighborhood. Let a thousand hydroponic flowers bloom!
--
make install -not war
I think you two have just described, with reasonable accuracy, the way that many people of East and West view one another's cultures.
It extends far beyond IT. I recall an article on culture clashes in some other business. The big boss (from Japan) felt disrespected when his American subordinates questioned his orders; the Americans felt disrespected that the boss wasn't listening to their concerns. It can be counterproductive and even dangerous to assume that "everybody who is decent does everything the same way I was taught." And the conflicts tend to come in areas which we are least likely to consider as questionable.
It can be counterproductive and even dangerous to assume that "everybody who is decent does everything the same way I was taught."
This is a problem in software design in general. In my years of debating my view of the non-merits of OOP, I realize that people tend to assume that others think (process information) the same way they themselves do. When others don't "get" how one thinks about something, one tends to assume the other person is ignorant, misguided, or not as smart. Software design is more related to psychology than to math (assuming machine performance is not the primary cost factor). There is no standard method of communicating "head models" to one another, so it often ends up in arguments and paradigm battles where everyone involved is confused and bewildered by their inability to convey their viewpoint.
It is far easier to describe what you want software to do than how to best organize it for grokkability and long-term maintenance.
Table-ized A.I.
cragen
The difficulty of having Asian parents while growing up in an entirely American culture has been pretty evident... it's slightly different for every Asian-American, but from my experience and all my cousins (yes, all 15-20 of them) there's always been culture shock when it comes to girlfriends, spouses (don't get married 'til you're 28!), life decisions (you should be a doctor or a lawyer -- although at the time, software engineer was a respectable decision), and general parental control of your life. :-) Ask any Asian-American that grew up here about it, and chances are they've also been torn between the clear individualistic culture here and the clear group-oriented culture their parents came from and raised them to be.
And precious few books have been written about the subject, too... but that's starting to change. The Joy Luck Club was a start.
-Rob
Marriage doesn't have to suck!
I have an interesting kneejerk reaction for an American, I stick up for the French. Perhaps this is influenced by living not too many doors down from the Marquis de Lafayette's local residence during the Revolution combined with childhood heros including Georges Guynemer and Roland Garros; not to mention possible bias from being able to trace my father's family back to Louis X (Ok, such a bad king that encyclopedias go staight from Louis IX to Louis XI) and hence back to Hugh Capet ( a cutthroat, but hey, a successful one).
The French has always had a reputation for being among the bravest of the brave (ok, so sometimes they were bravest when following behind a teenage girl, but we'll overlook that). Nor have they had any traditional reputation as loosers ( and when they did lose you could count on the fact that the winner was going to pay dearly).
Google on Verdun. In WWI Germany decided they were going to win the war by "bleeding France white." And they did. What they didn't count on was that France could bleed white and remain standing.
Verdun did not fall.
What the French have, as a culture, is a sense of the gallant. The problem here is that the ultimate in gallantry is to go down fighting for a noble cause. The role model is Roland, dying while defending the pass (as it is for the Greeks if it comes to that. The battle at Thermopolyae is one of the most remarkable events in military history).
Alain Prost once noted the irony that he was vilified in France while he was winning in a French car, but became a national hero when he started coming in second in an Italian car.
The point being that the French car was superiour. Almost not winning in a superiour car is the inferiour performance from the point of view of the gallant. Almost, but not quite, winning in an inferiour car is glorious. A Pomeranian taking it to a German Shepard, and going down in defeat, but in the process leaving the Shepard so bloodied that it must retire from the field and seek the ICU.
It isn't even fair to say the French like losing. Jacques Anquitil is a French God. He was a winner, but he won with guts and spirit. Raymond Poulidor is also a French God although he was the perenial bridesmaid to a Belgian, but pushed the Belgian all the way, with guts and spirit even though the cause was laregley hopeless.
To the Frenchman it's the spirit that counts more than the end result.
Elan!
And in WWII there were an awful lot of dead Germans as the result of brave Frenchman refusing to give up the fight just because their government did.
KFG
Outside the USA, a Yankee is someone from the USA.
In the USA, a Yankee is someone from the Northern USA.
In the Northern USA, a Yankee is someone from New England (the northeast part of the country, from Maine to Massachussets).
In New England, a Yankee is someone from Vermont.
In Vermont, a Yankee is a local who still has an outhouse, instead of indoor plumbing.