Maria , Vice President of Engineering – Memento Inc
Maria is responsible for technology development at Memento Inc, a software company that produces technology used by banks and financial institutions to catch fraud among employees and outside criminals. While most of her team is based in Massachusetts, Maria oversees the work of about a dozen software development and quality assurance engineers who live in India.
MARIA MANAGES ENGINEERING TEAMS BASED IN MASSACHUSETTS AND INDIA
Memento develops their products incrementally, using a quick iterative approach, which is why clear communication between the engineers in Massachusetts and India is crucial. The quality assurance engineers are easiest to manage because the work they do tends to be more prescribed, measurable, and repetitive. On the other hand, the software engineers must often interpret specifications and intuitively know the right thing to do. Maria’s firm puts a great deal of time and effort bringing their offshore people up to speed so they have a deep understanding of the company, its technology, and customers. Newly hired offshore employees come to the Massachusetts office for a 3-4 month orientation to immerse themselves in the company and the details of the product’s architecture and user base. In this way they are able to return to India having formed solid relationships with their American counterparts and with a full understanding of Memento and its products.
OFFSHORE TEAM LEAD MUST BE A GREAT PROJECT MANAGER
“With offshore teams, there is no substitute for a high quality project leader”. Maria has found the offshore manager’s technical knowledge, confidence, and ability to communicate weigh most heavy in the success of an offshore teaming effort. The offshore manager must be fully synchronized with their US counterparts yet function autonomously as a supervisor and in hiring. In addition to technical skills, this person must have initiative and the right kind of personality to make things work.
Outside of weather issues and occasional power outages the working relationship is transparent. Subtle cultural differences such as Indian team’s tendency to be polite and reluctant to raise objections are dealt with by directly asking for feedback.
MEMENTO USES EXISTING TECHNOLOGY TO KEEP TEAMS IN SYNC
Memento has not had to build specialized systems to enable communication with the virtual team. Everyone uses the same technology to coordinate and communicate: e-mail, phone, IM, an Intranet, a source code repository and a bug tracking system are their major tools. The time difference can be a major inconvenience – the Massachusetts engineers schedule early morning meetings to catch the Indian engineers by the late evening.
Overall though, Maria’s firm has had very good luck with their virtual offshore team.
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