> My team at work is one part in Boston, one part in the Bay Area, one
> part in Japan, and one part in Scotland. Using email,
> videoconferencing, vpn and vnc technologies etc and using the same
> design specs there are few hurdles to jump.
Few_er_ hurdles, perhaps, but ...
> you could have system architects or whatever here in the Bay Area
> communicating to people in India.
... accent the subjunctive :-) While this might happen in future, this model for global division of labor does not seem to be currently widespread. Where IT globalization has succeeded, it seems to have been done by
* multiple teams, but one team per location
IMHO it's still rare to have intra-team dispersal, such that members
of a relatively tightly-focused group (e.g. all reporting to the
same firstline manager) are not colocated. It is much more common to
divide functionality geographically: e.g. one _team_ in Boston,
another in Japan, and another in Scotland. (I'll admit to a lack of
definitive data. OTOH I also work for a ... very globalized, very,
very large corp specializing in software development, and I know a
lot of other folks with similar experience.)
* cycle until skills exported
// This is the New American Model in pcode :-)
while (high-paying jobs remain) {
for (each functional area) {
while (foreign team skills < domestic team skills) {
import foreign contractors;
have more-skilled domestic workers train them;
return imports to country of origin;
}
}
}
I.e.
> And a lot of the Indian SW developers who have been working here
> are being sent back to India and implementing the various
> methodologies that they have learned here.