Page 249 - Managing the Mobile Workforce

228 � mAnAgIng the moBIle workForCe

to be effective in a software environment involving millions of lines of
code and five or six operating systems. “A year for us is barely getting
started,” he says. So issues of trust and respect have a huge impact
on the team’s ability to be successful. In fact, Brian believes that his
contractor team is most successful when all parties consider their re-
lationship to be a partnership.

partnership
HP has been working with the vendor for nine to ten years, which
provides contract employees for Brian’s team. “It’s not a contract,” he
says. “It’s a partnership. What’s the distinction? For us, a partnership
means that if we encounter unanticipated difficulties, we have to chal-
lenge each other to lean in and help each other at whatever the need or
time may be and on any level, be it program, technical, financial. We
have the kind of relationship that we are willing to flex our respective
corporate parameters in order to get what we need done.” A partner-
ship is a deep commitment to each other that involves respect, mutual
support, and a desire for each other’s success over the long term.

put It into gear
“We have normal gear, first gear, and high gear, which is working
around the clock when we have problems,” Brian says. The nice thing
about having teams in different parts of the world is that people can
be working on a problem for 12 hours and then kick it over to the
other team for two hours, so they can sleep. So some group of people
is working on the problem continuously for 24 hours until it can be
solved. One advantage of having teams located on the opposite sides
of the world is that work can be done all the time, if necessary. “When
we work around the clock—I call it . . . ‘throwing the football back
and forth every 12 hours’—is really better not face-to-face because it’s
really clear what you start with and what you need to return. There’s
no confusion.”