If someone had told me this time last year that I would have lived and worked in China for three months, I would have probably told them they were crazy. However that was exactly what did happen to me from July to September of last year when the company I work for asked me to participate in a newly obtained contract in Xi’an, China.
The project was a unique one for my company in that it was a joint venture with one of the largest aircraft manufacturers in China. Part of our company’s mandate was to develop an aircraft simulator in field for our clients as well as to teach them the many aspects of aerospace simulation. My role was a combination of many different ones, including that of mentor, customer liaison, and scrum master for the team of Canadian and Chinese engineers. As the project’s scrum master my responsibility was to verify that all processes were followed and that progress was being made. This entailed explaining to a team of Chinese engineers, who had never participated in this form of software development, what exactly incremental and iterative software development was, the various procedures involved such as sprint planning, retrospective meetings and daily scrum (review) meetings. As well being a technical mentor meant educating the engineers on the difference between aerospace design and simulation, how to read and interpret various diagrams and documentation, and on the use of complex simulation tools.
Arriving in China I was not prepared for the culture shock I would feel, and for the difficulty I would have communicating with so many of the individuals I came in contact with. Simple tasks were taxing and social norms were different and unique. Work started off challenging as well with many of the Chinese engineers having had no previous software development experience, and limited English language skills. To overcome this obstacle I requested from our client the use of one of their in house translators and with my fellow Canadian