Large-Scale Software Engineering at High Speed

Texas A&M UniversityIAP Distinguished Lecture

Mark CathcartSenior Distinguished Engineer; Director Software EngineeringDell Inc.

http://cathcam.wordpress.comMark_cathcart@dell.com

March 8, 2011

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Speed is of the Essence

• Today, we’re in an era where speed is of the essence.• It’s critical for competitive reasons to stay ahead of the competition.• The customer expectation in the Internet-era is much higher.

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Engineering is a Discipline

• Foundation: firm foundation in engineering; treat like a discipline• Definition: [Wikipedia] first descriptive word is discipline

– Followed by art and profession

• Discipline: The key to success; more professional.

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Culture is critical

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• Garage bands? – Longtail effect?• Big=global. Projects are globally distributed and developed.• Global differences. Attitude and approach will be vastly different.• Play to cultural strengths. Adapt to cultural strengths

Process matters

• The “how”: It’s not what you do, but how you do it.• No surprises: Good ≠ good; Bad ≠ bad• Communicate: Over communicate; understand/align.• Incremental works: Checkpoints; gauge progress; report out.

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Architecture must enable engineering

• No roadblock: Architecture can’t get in the way• Good architecture: Effective in a globally distributed environment.• Vertical no more: No Silos; technology evolving horizontally.• Alignment: The way people think about constructing systems needs to

match the engineering.

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Customer first: Dell’s software approach

• Integration: All about bringing elements together• Customer choice: through open, horizontal integration• Dell: We’re building the architecture to support engineering

disciplines that respect differences for customers worldwide.

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Q&A

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Thank you!