Slashdot Mirror
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.
The difference between east and west culture and the ramifications for the world have been in the news for a long time. For instance, the traditional religions in Asia have absolutely no problems with cloning or experimentation on embryos (which is basically verboten in western countries), so the majority of work in that field is in China or other countries which accept the future for what it is. The global marketplace is shrinking, and as we become more and more interconnected cultural differences will no doubt become more and more of an issue.
"...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?
$7.95/mo, 200 GB disk, 2TBxfer, MySQL, PHP, RoR.
The correlation between culture (as defined in the article) and nationality is very, ver often exagerated. At least that is my experience, after having worked/studied in plenty of multinational environments and with people of multiple nationalities.
/.ers, for example, have a cultural outlook more similar to one another than to the average of his/her national peer. Same applies to many other online communities.
Stereotypes do apply, but anti-stereotypes are plenty, as well. You will find the organized Greek, the warm German, the shy Italian, the Brazilian who does not like soccer and the American who knows world geography.
I have experienced much more consistent cultural environments going from ony company (corporate culture) to another, than crossing national borders. I have seen corporate environments absorb various nationalities, even operating in different countries, and retaining its own (original) corporate culture. And I have seen, as well, plenty of cultural clashes and disagreement over world view within more than one country.
The internet makes the dissociation between nationality/geography and culture even starker.
Quem a paca cara compra, paca cara pagará.
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.
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