Assignment 5
Read about the 24-hour Knowledge Factory and write up your thoughts in your blog. This paper is obviously about outsourcing, but I'd like you to also discuss your thoughts around integration and the very idea of a "24-hour Knowledge Factory".
The 24-hour knowledge factory is an interesting concept that seems to work well in theory, but I'm not entirely convinced that is entirely effective.
The whole premise of working a normal workday and then passing along your work for someone else to continue goes against everything that I have learned, both from experience and in my education. This mentality reminds me of the siloed waterfall (i.e., over the wall) development methodology that the majority of the information technology industry has tried to move away from. Collaboration and iterative approaches seem to be the better approaches to complete tasks. Simple hindrances to collaboration can be as simple as physical barriers like cube walls or offices. I would imagine being on the other side of the planet makes teambuilding even more difficult (besides the cultural differences).
The authors point out that success of a knowledge factory is based on effective communications. I wholeheartedly agree that good communication is important for any project or methodology. However, in my experience, no matter how good communications are at a handoff point, follow-up questions are always inevitable. In a serial development environment where one group is working in one area of the world, and the group that handed the work off is inaccessible (e.g., sleeping), follow-up conversations don't take place and then certain aspects of projects become "assumptions." While correct assumptions are fine, incorrect guesses can be disastrous.
The article mentions a few methodologies and technologies to help ease the communications gap. However, we all know that there is no communications tool more effective than face to face meetings and conversations. No technology can accurately convey facial expressions, body language, voice inflections, and whiteboard scribbles better than a meeting that you attend in person. In our diverse workplaces today, we must learn how to work with people that communicate and work differently than we do. I could only guess the additional difficulties learning to work with people across the globe that you never really meet in person.
However, I can see where the 24 hour knowledge factory has its place in the industry. For instance, if an application being developed was object oriented and its functionality could be broken down into multiple components, I can understand how pieces can be developed in serial or parallel, no matter the location. However, integrating the pieces would be best done in a consistent manner (i.e., by one centralized group), or else you would potentially get the collapsing bridge example mentioned in the paper. Although I'm not a programmer (but I play one for the class project), I honestly can't say for sure if even the object oriented example would actually work.
As for design, I do not believe the 24-hour knowledge factory would be effective. Designers (whether interaction or graphic) need to work collaboratively in order to develop a cohesive design that stays consistent throughout a user's experience. Otherwise, users could potentially encounter different interfaces, all within the same application.
As you can see, I'm not sold on the whole idea of the 24 hour knowledge factory. Maybe if I read more success stories I'd be convinced – but so far I'm not.
The 24-hour knowledge factory is an interesting concept that seems to work well in theory, but I'm not entirely convinced that is entirely effective.
The whole premise of working a normal workday and then passing along your work for someone else to continue goes against everything that I have learned, both from experience and in my education. This mentality reminds me of the siloed waterfall (i.e., over the wall) development methodology that the majority of the information technology industry has tried to move away from. Collaboration and iterative approaches seem to be the better approaches to complete tasks. Simple hindrances to collaboration can be as simple as physical barriers like cube walls or offices. I would imagine being on the other side of the planet makes teambuilding even more difficult (besides the cultural differences).
The authors point out that success of a knowledge factory is based on effective communications. I wholeheartedly agree that good communication is important for any project or methodology. However, in my experience, no matter how good communications are at a handoff point, follow-up questions are always inevitable. In a serial development environment where one group is working in one area of the world, and the group that handed the work off is inaccessible (e.g., sleeping), follow-up conversations don't take place and then certain aspects of projects become "assumptions." While correct assumptions are fine, incorrect guesses can be disastrous.
The article mentions a few methodologies and technologies to help ease the communications gap. However, we all know that there is no communications tool more effective than face to face meetings and conversations. No technology can accurately convey facial expressions, body language, voice inflections, and whiteboard scribbles better than a meeting that you attend in person. In our diverse workplaces today, we must learn how to work with people that communicate and work differently than we do. I could only guess the additional difficulties learning to work with people across the globe that you never really meet in person.
However, I can see where the 24 hour knowledge factory has its place in the industry. For instance, if an application being developed was object oriented and its functionality could be broken down into multiple components, I can understand how pieces can be developed in serial or parallel, no matter the location. However, integrating the pieces would be best done in a consistent manner (i.e., by one centralized group), or else you would potentially get the collapsing bridge example mentioned in the paper. Although I'm not a programmer (but I play one for the class project), I honestly can't say for sure if even the object oriented example would actually work.
As for design, I do not believe the 24-hour knowledge factory would be effective. Designers (whether interaction or graphic) need to work collaboratively in order to develop a cohesive design that stays consistent throughout a user's experience. Otherwise, users could potentially encounter different interfaces, all within the same application.
As you can see, I'm not sold on the whole idea of the 24 hour knowledge factory. Maybe if I read more success stories I'd be convinced – but so far I'm not.
posted by kirk at 11:42:00 PM
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