EWII and IndiaBart van KuikApplication Developer

EWII

Elsevier Electronic Warehouse II Processes scientific literature, receiving it

from suppliers and distributing it to clients. RAC cluster with more than 12 Tb data Various technologies: Forms, Workflow,

Advanced Queuing, J2SE For the J2SE part, cooperation with India

Java Team

Team:– Netherlands: Sjoerd Michels, Bart van Kuik– India:Gurdev Parmar, Raghu Narasimhamurthy

Tasks:– Netherlands:

50% design, management and systemtesting50% programming, unittesting

– India:100% programming, unittesting

Staff Augmentation a.k.a. body shop

Communicatie

Sometimes through telephone, but mostly through instant messaging

Differences in communication:– Dutch people are open to the point of rudeness.

Expect a more 'reserved' attitude.– Don't expect a straight No– Don't expect straight criticism

Knowledge The Indian IT jobmarket is moving People's backgrounds vary somewhat Don't assume a strong relational background Do an introduction into the business

backgrounds and technologies Don't include queries in design, they take

responsibility away from the developer

Distance

Not exactly across the room Be as accessible as possible; adjust daily

schedule to match the Indian timezone and vice versa

Keep them up-to-date on:– Meetings– Happy or angry client– Deadlines– Gossip

“It compiles, so it works.”

“It compiles, so it works.”

Project jokeProject joke

Quality

Code reviews necessary:– Error handling: user error or exception? Pass

exceptions with which the testteam can work– Logging: don't log the girlfriend's name, log IDs

and whatnot

Keep administration tight: don't leave bugs open while they're actually fixed!

Give them a full development environment– Class ownership can then stay with one person– Bugs can be fixed by the class owner

Remote working technology

Use one development environment; maintaining two costs too much time

When VPN is taken care of, test it with various tools including browser and instant messaging

When our Indian colleagues used VPN, they couldn't use instant messaging

VPN was too slow for Designer Web Conferencing, remote desktop or VNC is

NOT a substitute for VPN

Conclusion

Solve the aforementioned problems After some time at the project, a tight

teamspirit will develop Hearthily recommended!

AQ&Q U E S T I O N SQ U E S T I O N S

A N S W E R SA N S W E R S