The Art of War for Software Project Management

Transcription

1 The Art of War for Software Project Management Sakgasit Ramingwong 1, Pruet Boonma 1, Lachana Inchaiwong 1 and Sakgasem Ramingwong 2 1 Department of Computer Engineering, Chiang Mai University 2 Department of Industrial Engineering, Chiang Mai University Chiang Mai, 50200, Thailand sramingw@une.edu.au, pruet@cs.umb.edu, lachana@eng.cmu.ac.th, sakgasem@eng.cmu.ac.th Abstract Asia is a rapidly rising destination in software industry. The Art of War, a classic war manual written by Sun Tzu, a well known Chinese philosopher and military strategist, has been influencing business and way of life in East Asian countries for millenniums. Although The Art of War is originally written for military warfare, it is still strongly relevant to modern day s business. Indeed, the concept from Sun Tzu s writing is extremely applicable to real software project management as well as software project management in education. Key Words: Software project management, Education, Offshore outsourcing 1. Introduction The growth of software industry during the recent years has been phenomenon. India has unquestionably become a major player in the software business. Furthermore, China and many other Asian countries also increase their importance in this market sector extremely rapidly. The market volume of global software industry tends to keep increasing. In 2003, the revenue of international IT outsourcing is reported to reach $154 billion [1]. Undoubtedly, this rising trend will keep continuing during the coming decade [2]. In the past, offshored tasks mainly involved lower-end activities such as call-centers and back-office operation [3]. However, recently, reports indicate that more highend tasks such as designing have been increasingly offshored due to the increasing experience and capabilities of the offshoring providers [4]. In the near future, due to the increasing costs and business maturity, India is likely to change its focus to the high-end activities while China and other upcoming offshoring destinations, where the financial structure is still very competitive, will take over the low-end market [5]. Interestingly, many of these upcoming offshoring destinations are located in Asia. In particular, according to A.T. Kearney s report, the other four most attractive offshoring destinations, besides India and China, are all located in Southeast Asia, namely Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore and Thailand [6]. It is widely accepted that culture has a major impact on business. Indeed, Asian culture also plays critical roles in Asian software business [7]. With thousands years of evolving history, the culture of Asian forms a very strong foundation. Many of outstanding philosophies such as Confucianism and Taoism still have strong influence to Asian business until the present day. The Art of War, a book based on military strategy, is widely adopted as influential business philosophy by businessmen in Chinese and many other East Asian countries [8], including software business. Since the contents of The Art of War mainly focus on strategy and management, it is extremely suitable to connect this classic philosophy to software project management. For business purposes, understanding this philosophy provide better understanding among cross-cultural collaboration. On the other hand, for education purposes, an appropriate adaptation of a well-known philosophy can extend the learning s perspective on the class subject in exciting ways. This paper introduces the association of The Art of War and its application in software project management as well as some application of this classic war manual in software project management education. 2. The Art of War The Art of War was written by Sun Tzu (544 BC 496 BC), a great Chinese philosopher and military strategist [9]. It had been valued as one of the most, if not the most, influential classic Chinese

2 war manual by many great military leaders, for example, Napoleon, or Douglas MacAuthur. In the present days, The Art of War has been adapted to cope with modern business strategies [10]. It has been translated into many languages and is recognized internationally. The Art of War comprises thirteen chapters [11] [10]. The list of chapters and their brief descriptions are described in table 1. Table 1. Chapters in The Art of War Ch. Chapter Title Description 1 Laying Plans Key elements of war 2 Waging War Nature of competition 3 Attack by Ingredients for success Stratagem 4 Tactical Tactics of war Dispositions 5 Energy Military management 6 Weak Points and Military analysis Strong 7 Maneuvering Supply and maneuvering 8 Variation in Tactics Adaptations 9 The Army On the Evaluating of enemy March 10 Terrain Positioning 11 The Nine Situations War situations 12 The Attack by Fire Use of weapons 13 The Use of Spies Information gathering 3. The Art of War in Software Project Management Interestingly, according to the brief description in table 1, almost all chapters in The Art of War are clearly relevant to project management. With an appropriate adaptation and interpretation, the connection of these chapters and software project management become perceptible. Table 2 displays The Art of War in software project management context. Table 2. The Art of War and software project management Ch. The Art of War Software Project Management 1 Laying Plans Software project estimation 2 Waging War Concept of software projects 3 Attack by Stratagem Project success factors 4 Tactical Dispositions Planning and strategies 5 Energy Team management 6 Weak Points and Strong Software project analysis 7 Maneuvering Planning and strategies 8 Variation in Tactics Problem solving 9 The Army On the March Software project evaluation 10 Terrain Environment management 11 The Nine Situations Planning and strategies 12 The Attack by Fire Planning and strategies 13 The Use of Spies Planning and strategies Table 2 suggests that more than half of the chapters in The Art of War can be clearly linked to software project management while other chapters contributes decent strategic issues to software project management. The detailed discussion of each issue is in the next section. 3. The Art of War in Software Project Management There are numerous favorable issues that The Art of War contributes to modern software project management. A few key issues from each of the chapters is highlighted in this section. 3.1 Chapter 1: Laying Plans According to Sun Tzu, the art of war is governed by five constant factors: (1) The Moral Law, (2) Heaven, (3) Earth, (4) The Commander, and (5) Method and Discipline. This is similar to a typical software project composition which highly depends on (1) organizational rules, (2) external or uncontrollable factors, (3) internal or controllable factors, (4) team leader, and (5) management and discipline, respectively. It is very important to estimate these factors and ensure that all they suit the project before commencing one. In addition, The Art of War also suggests that in a competition scenario, all five factors of each competitor need to be investigated. Obviously, the competitor with the best control of all five factors has the best chance to win. By evaluating aggregate assimilations of these aspects, it is possible to predict the winner of the competition before the beginning of the competition itself. This can be applied to the preproject activities such as project bidding. 3.2 Chapter 2: Waging War The Art of War clearly stated that no country gains benefit from prolonged warfare. This clearly reflects an undesirable nature of software projects. Software project has been having an appalling success rate [12]. The escalation of software projects do not only results in the increasing costs, but also difficulties in human resource management, loss of morale, and loss of opportunities. Thus, this should be prevented at all costs. In this chapter Sun Tzu also suggests the idea of rewarding. In software project management context,

3 it is widely accepted that rewarding, extra benefit or at least a public praise to the first team member who achieves the target, can increase the moral of the team. This not only encourages the productive member but also motivates the entire team. 3.3 Chapter 3: Attack by Stratagem This chapter bears several of Sun Tzu s most famous strategies. One of these strategies is quoted from [11] as follows: It is the rule in war, if our forces are ten to the enemy's one, to surround him; if five to one, to attack him; if twice as numerous, to divide our army into two; if equally matched, we can offer battle; if slightly inferior in numbers, we can avoid the enemy; if quite unequal in every way, we can flee from him. The above quotation instructs software engineers to appropriately adapt project approach and resource allocation based on the size, complexity, achievability and criticality of the projects, i.e. energy, as well as the available internal skills and resources, i.e. our forces. For instance, in some cases, the project should be tackled as a whole while it should be divided into smaller units in other cases. It also suggests that do not accept the project without an adequate capacity. Failing a project is more harmful than not accepting one. The second but probably most famous Sun Tzu s strategy is also introduced in this chapter. It is quoted also from [11] as follows: If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle. These short but very powerful sentences are facts. It is undeniable that in order to complete a software project, both the project objectives, e.g. user s requirements, and the team capabilities need to be adequately understood. If the project objectives are clearly understand, the requirements are complete, the risks are mitigated and the team has enough proficiency, it is extremely unlikely that the project will fail. On the other hand, if the project objectives are not clear or the requirements are random, despite the capability of the team, the success cannot be guaranteed. This emphasizes that having the best team does not always mean that all project will be success. Moreover, it also proposes that if the project objectives are unclear and the team lack sufficient skills, the failure is almost certain. Another important issue included in this chapter is characteristics of an undesirable leader. The characteristics of the undesirable leader involve issuing hobbling commands, ignorantly interfering the team, and inappropriately allocating the resources. Indeed, these characteristics can easily ruin a software project. 3.4 Chapter 4: Tactical Dispositions Sun Tzu said that good fighters put themselves in a position beyond the possibility of defeat and then wait for an opportunity to defeat the enemy. He also added that securing from defeat is under one control while defeating the enemy is uncontrollable. This further fortifies the main concept of The Art of War that is failing the tasks is the least desirable outcome. If the project is not feasible, it should not be commenced. This chapter contains another interesting war strategy which seems to be appropriate for software project management. It explains that the principles of battle are measurement, estimation, calculation, balancing and victory. In software project management context, understanding controllable factors leads to accurate capability measurement. Then, accurate capability measurement leads to precise estimation. Precise estimation leads to resource allocation, planning and finally the success of the project. 3.5 Chapter 5: Energy In this chapter, The Art of War gave several insights on project team management. It said that there is no difference between management principles of a large team and a small team. The issue that matters is an appropriate resource allocation. Based on Sun Tzu s perception, having a large team is an advantage since it offers more resources, diversity and opportunities. Sun Tzu indicated that in a battle, a direct method, e.g. using soldiers, may be used to progress the battle, however, an indirect method, e.g. spying, is also needs in order to secure the victory. In software project management, software engineers are needed not to only focus on the project on hand but also the surrounding environments such as customer and user satisfaction. Sun Tzu compared the team management to musical notes, colors and tastes. Although there are a small limited amount of musical notes, their combination can produce an endless amount of melodies. In the same way, the combination of direct and indirect methods in software project management

4 can form a countless strategies for success. This concept can also be applied to the selection of a software process. Although there are not many outstanding software process models, the combination of their approaches and concepts can produce a limitless strategy. 3.6 Chapter 6: Weak Points and Strong This chapter focuses on analyzing and locating weak points of an enemy. When the weakness is identified, it will become the main target of an attack. Similarly, the weakness of a software project needs to be identified and mitigated more seriously than the other part of the project. This is similar to project risk analysis or the identification of a critical path in Program Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT). Another fascinating concept offered in this chapter is that there is no panacea for an achievement. The approaches and strategies need to be adapted as appropriate to suit the characteristic of the software project. There is neither approach nor strategy which is suitable for all projects. 3.7 Chapter 7: Maneuvering Maneuvering highly involves with planning. The Art of War discussed that overambitious and overoptimistic are extremely dangerous to the project. Since most team comprise of both higher and lower proficiency members, although the higher skill member might be able to achieve the target of an ambitious planning, it is very likely that the lower skill member will fall behind. In this way, a project bottleneck occurs and the schedule would not be met. Therefore, the project planning and scheduling must be done in accordance to the team s real potential. The balancing of the team is critical to project success. 3.8 Chapter 8: Variation in Tactics The Art of War always emphasized on the variation of strategies and actions. Likewise, a good project leader needs to be able to identify, tackle, and manage both urgent and potential problems. It is important to overlook some minor issues thus the more critical issues can be focused. The importance of the leader is highlight in this chapter. In the historical warfare, taking down the leader is one of the most cunning strategies to win the battle. A leader with an extreme personality is more vulnerable than other leaders. In modern days, this indicates that the loss of the leader or the key project members can severely ruin the project. Software companies need to carefully maintain their personal asset. It is very likely that a project will be collapsed if the key members of that project leave in the middle. 3.9 Chapter 9: The Army on the March This chapter mainly focuses on evaluating the enemy s behavior. Similar to the sixth chapter, this is more relevant to organizational level strategies. However, in software project management context, it is possible to interpret this section as the evaluation of the tasks. It suggests that the true intentions of the customers are critical for the project success and they need to be uncovered. Additional team management strategies are included in this chapter. Sun Tzu believed that punishing may reduce the loyalty of the subordinates, especially the ones who have not yet grown the attachment to the organization. However, this does not mean the discipline can be neglected. An appropriate level of discipline is needed for managing the team Chapter 10: Terrain In a historical warfare there are numerous uncontrollable factors such as weather, storm, and temperature. In the same way, many issues such as customer requirements, intellectual property laws or natural disasters are uncontrollable factors in software project management. However, six issues that involve (1) resource allocation, (2) team position allocation, (3) adequacy of skills, (4) management, (5) discipline, and (6) estimation, are all under the control of the team leader. If one or more of these issues leads to the project failure, the leader needs to take the responsibility Chapter 11: The Nine Situations This chapter involves heavily of battle strategies. It explains the nine varieties of scenario and focus on the strategies to quickly end the battle. One of the interesting philosophies in this chapter is to force the soldier in a dangerous situation in order to build up their strengths. This can be applied to modern software project management. The team leader can measure the capabilities of the team members by setting an unfeasible target. Indeed, this evaluation should base on non critical project tasks. The result of the evaluation can be effectively used for the future project estimation and planning Chapter 12: The Attack by Fire Fire is an ultimate attack in the historical warfare since it destroys everything. Therefore, it must be used with an extreme care. Apart from a lesson that warns the leaders not to act by temper, any project leaders also have to keep in mind that any action can cause a side-effect, e.g. too much pressure on team members can lead to an outburst and project break down.

5 3.13 Chapter 13: The Use of Spies In the ancient times, information gathering is critical to the victory. The Art of War defined five different types of spies. In the present day, the usage of spies might be obsolete. However, the role of information gathering is still very important. As discussed previously, the customers are critical to the project. In order to achieve maximum customer satisfaction, it is important to uncover their hidden objectives or agenda, if there is any. This can be done by appointing a customer relation officers or including a customer s representative into the development team. 4. The Art of War in Software Project Management Education Similar to the combination of strategies in battle, the flexibility for applying The Art of War in education is endless. Apart form using this classic war manual to conspiringly explain facts and strategies in software project management as described in previous section, it can also be used for situating interesting scenarios which either force or encourage the students to solve problems. Chapter eight, for example, suggests a scenario when a key project member is lost. More interestingly, immediate change of project requirement, which is one of the most undesirable issues in software project management, is suggested in various chapters. 5. Conclusion In wars, the most critical objective is not to seek the victory but to prevent the defeat. This is undeniably true in modern software project management which the failure is unfavorable. The Art of War advises a software engineer to be very carefully focused on self, team, project and environment evaluation. With an accurate evaluation, it is possible to predict the success of the project. In addition, it proposes that the software engineer should not rely on a single approach or strategy. Flexible software process selection or a combination of strategies is required to improve the project success. This classic strategy manual also suggests many other interesting aspects such as the undesirable characteristics or a team leader, rewarding, customer relationship, balancing the team and etc. All thirteen chapters of this classic military treatise offer a great range of strategies and management lessons which can effectively be adapted to modern business. In Asia, especially China and many other East Asian countries, this is one of the most influential business philosophies. The study of this philosophy not only enhances the mutual understanding in cross-cultural relationship, but also provides numerous scholastic strategies and applications for real situations. For educational purpose, the integration of the classic philosophy can greatly improve the attractiveness of the class. Additionally, many perspectives from The Art of War can be adapted as case studies which encourage the problem solving skills and the flexibility of the students. Despite of its 2,500 old of history, Sun Tzu s The Art of War remains fresh. The concepts and philosophies from this book can still be used in present and future businesses. Many of these guidelines can be adapted to software project management and software project management education, very effectively. 6. References [1] Willcocks, L., Hindle, J., Feeny, D. & Lacity, M. IT and Business Process Outsourcing: The Knowledge Potential. Information Systems Management. 21, 3, pp (2004). [2] Seidman, S.B. & Finkelstein, L. Software Offshoring - Risks and Opportunities for Software Engineering Programs. In Proceedings of 17th Conference on Software Engineering Education and Training, 2004 (Norfolk, Virginia, USA, March 1-3, 2004). CSEET'04. IEEE Computer Society, pp (2004). [3] Huen, W.H. An Enterprise Perspective of Software Offshoring. In Proceedings of 36th ASEE/IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference (San Diego, CA, October 28 31, 2006). An Enterprise Perspective of Software Offshoring. IEEE, pp. S2C (2006). [4] Fletcher, I. 20 Defenses of Offshoring and Why They Are Wrong. American Engineering Association. (2004) [online]. Available from: [Accessed 20 February 2006] [5] Horasis. Release of the Global Outsourcing Report. Horasis. The Global Visions Community. (2005) [online]. Available from: [Accessed 22 March 2006] [6] A.T. Kearney, Inc. Building the Optimal Global Footprint. A.T. Kearney, Inc. (2006) [online]. Available from: _S.pdf [Accessed 30 July 2006] [7] Beulen, E. & Ribbers, P. Managing an IT-Outsourcing Partnership in Asia Case study: the Relationship between a Global Outsourcing Company and its Global IT Services Supplier. In Proceedings of the 35th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences 2002 (Hawaii, USA, January 7-10, 2002). HICSS'02. IEEE Computer Society, pp (2002). [8] Lee, S.F., Roberts, P. & Lau, W.S. Sun Tzu S the Art of War for Business Management Strategic Planning: Resources and Competitive Actions. In Proceedings of

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