Tag: globalization

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Scrum for Software Globalization

Diagram of Software Globalization using Scrum
Are you learning about Agile software methods, but aren’t sure how to apply them to global software? This article explains how to do globalization in an organization using Scrum as a methodology.

The primary activities of software globalization are internationalization, localization, and testing.  We will describe how each activity maps to the Scrum process.

Software Internationalization (I18n)

Software internationalization is the process of architecting and writing software so it will function properly in multiple countries.  It involves designing software in a modular fashion so new countries can be easily supported by swapping out language packs and software libraries, rather than rewriting lots of code.  This is a primary engineering task, and is well-suited to being done with Scrum.  Requirements from international customers tend to change rapidly, so using Scrum to address these requirements in an agile fashion is a great idea.

Functional Testing

This is functional testing that is specific to the internationalization process.  This verifies that generic features can be used by international customers, and also verifies features that are specific to certain international market segments.

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3G Subscriber Data

Data on 3G subscribers is from Mary Meeker’s ‘Internet Trends 2010’ presentation from Morgan Stanley. Created using Tableau Public visualization software.

What can we learn from these charts?   First, let’s look at ARPU growth.  It seems there is fairly broad pressure on ARPU across the board.  The big players, however, are holding their own around 0% change in ARPU YoY.  The highest ARPU is concentrated among US and European service providers.  Note that AT&T’s wireline business is listed separately from the wireless business.  The greatest drop in ARPU last year was felt by the smaller regional players in Asia and India.

Now let’s look at market cap for service providers versus blended ARPU and number of subscribers.  It is interesting to see that firms with the highest market cap are placed along a line that maximizes either ARPU or number of subscribers.  The small players in the previous chart likewise show up with low market cap, ARPU, and subscribers.  They clearly have a long way to go to reach the profitable horizon of the big players.

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Global Product Management Begins at Home

picture of homeWhy is this important? Adapting a product for international markets requires checking your assumptions about the current product definition. If you know why you are doing something today for your current market, it will be easier to check if that will still be true in the new market. This way, the internationalization team will be able to adapt the existing product to the new market in a systematic way. Having a process for internationalizing a product saves both time and cost.

Segmentation

How do you define your current market segments? How do you group customers? By industry, sector, geography, job title, age? What are the unique challenges faced by each segment?

Use Cases

A use case is a specific way that customers get value from your product. Why do your current customers use your product? What problems are they trying to solve? Key use cases should be fully documented, including steps the customer takes to complete the use case. Many use cases are specific to a particular segment.

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