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overcome-acquisition-based-silos-developer.md

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Title

Overcome Acquisition-based Silos (Developer Level)

Patlet

TBD

Problem

Inefficient/Duplicative development across teams because they are siloed

Context

Acquisition(s) resulting in multiple cultural perspectives. Developer is aware and InnerSource program environment is available to them. Post-acquisition, so this won't account for code decisions that were made around acquisition.

Forces

  • Different processes in place
  • Used to different tools and reluctant to change.
  • Competing middle managers
  • Rigid timelines
  • Politics and egos
  • Bi-directional fear/Lack of trust
  • Fear of losing one's job
  • Fear of loss of control of domain or code
  • Fear of loss of identity
  • Pandora's box/unknowns tied to opening up code

Sketch (optional)

Solution

For net-new acquisition

Make the acquired teams feel secure in the new environment by

  1. Establish a neutral (well-respected) governance committee across both companies that selects from the different options across these silos to converge and integrate. (validated).

  2. Come up with rational rules for managing code redundancy as a result of acquisition (validated)

  • Joint effort between two teams to bring new software into existing platforms. (validated)
  • If allowable/controllable, initial software selection not tied to job security. (not validated)
  • Same ground rules as above for determining tooling platforms. (validated)
  1. Giving developers and middle management good on-boarding training and mentoring with InnerSourcing as part of it. (not validated)
  • Clear guidance on how to bring their software onto existing platform. (not validated)
  • Definition of roles including Contributor and Trusted Committer. (not validated)

  1. Make it clear that there are career advancement opportunities that come along with actively participating as well as with being a Trusted Committer. (validated)

  2. Give them time to get comfortable with the new environment - a generous, realistic grace period for ramping on new company procedures/processes. Not uncommon for this period to be up to a year but there must be a mutually agreed-to deadline. Being "fully integrated" requires a certain level of representation among Trusted Committers from both companies. (validated)

  3. Minimum commitment for face to face engagement between the two teams.

  • can be representative team from acquiring company meet with team.
  • potential Trusted committers from acquired company can meet with parent company.

Resulting Context

  • Silos are broken and teams working together
  • This pattern does not address potential cultural issues due to the acquisition.

Rationale (optional)

Known Instances (optional)

Partially validated. Validated means this has been seen to work in similar scenarios but not in the exact context of this pattern.

Status

  • Initial
  • Old Status: Unproven (not reviewed)
  • Old Status: Pattern Idea - Draft In Progress

Author

David Marcucci, Nicholas Stahl, Padma Sudarsan, Ryan Bellmore, Erin Bank