Panel Discussion
Today's engineering managers need to be able to manage projects where some, or even all, of the engineers are located offshore. While the situation is becoming more common, the challenges and opportunities are still not widely understood. On the evening of March 6, the Silicon Valley IEEE Technology Management Council is bringing together 4 panelists, with diverse backgrounds and experience, to answer your questions about managing with offshore engineers.
Richard Danielson is Founder and President of PlanV Software. He has been a consumer and a provider of outsourced software development services since the mid-80s, working with offshore engineers from India, Russia, Israel, Taiwan, Korea, and Vietnam. One of Rich's projects was helping Honeywell set up their Bangalore development center. In early 2007 Rich founded PlanV Software which provides Vietnam-based web and mobile device application development services to small and young companies.
Rakesh Gowda is the Director of Software Development at QuinStreet, a provider of online marketing and media services for nearly 600 clients, headquartered in Foster City. In 2005, Rakesh traveled back to his home country of India to set up QuinStreet's development center in Pune, outside of Mumbai. He is pleased to report that the Pune team no longer requires his direct supervision for day-to-day operations. Rakesh holds a MS in Computer Science from Stanford and BE from the University of Mysore in India.
Accelerance CEO Steve Mezak has more than 25 years of software development experience and is a veteran of six Silicon Valley startups. He has served in a variety of management and technical roles, including CTO and CEO. Steve is also an internationally acclaimed speaker and author. His most recent book is Software Without Borders: A Step-By-Step Guide to Outsourcing Your Software Development. Steve holds a BS Degree in Computer Science from Worcester Polytechnic Institute, where he now serves as an advisor to the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department.
Dmytry Mykhaylov is a software engineer and project manager who has been working on geographically distributed projects for over 6 years. As a project manager he specializes in helping small to mid-sized projects in the Bay Area effectively incorporate offshore engineering talent. Dmytry firmly believes that an agile approach to project organization on all sides of a distributed team is key to a project's success and profitability.
Chris Sims, founder of the Technical Management Institute, will moderated the panel.
Networking Exercise
From 6:30 PM - 7:00 PM Chris Sims will facilitate a networking and collaboration exercise.
At last month's meeting, we answered the question "What makes an engineering manager great?" We created a list of the most important skills, traits, and practices for an engineering manger. Our list included:
- Integrity
- Enthusiastic & inspiring
- Listens well
- Communicates clearly
- Have a vision
- Interpersonal skills
- Respects staff input
- Appreciates the service of others
- Team builder
- Know each staff member's strengths and weaknesses
This month we will begin to answer the all-important question "How do you actually do these things?" Participants will collaborate in small teams, to generate suggestions for putting last month's ideas into actual practice. The results will be shared with all in attendance as well as posted online.
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