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The Outsourcing Commandments by
Geoffrey McCaleb
Development outsourcing: tips, tricks and pitfalls
Outsourcing is a subject of wonder, disdain, and even ignorance. I have a fairly unique position in that I have been a promoter of technology/development outsourcing for more than eight years. Back during the rising internet bubble, I felt it was highway robbery that a developer or designer could charge $100, $200, or even $500 an hour for something that used to be done for an average wage. At the time I was living in the Czech Republic, and you could have had a Cisco CCNA engineer for a laughable rate.
While enterprise-sized companies were not eager to jump on the bandwagon on a one-on-one basis, they did start turning to companies for unique projects, and eventually whole development streams. A company, even one on the other side of the world, has SLAs to be accounted for, people to phone and fax, and crucially, can be sued.
Outsourcing, though, is not the panacea for cutting costs that people would have you believe. Thanks to overzealous CTOs and CIOs, development teams around the globe are being shuttered at a rapid rate. Entire divisions of development and support staff are being handed their pink slips AND being told to train their replacements. Are people paying too much attention to the bottom line?
Here are my tips and tricks for ensuring your offshore project goes smoothly.
1.Outsourcing doesn’t mean your projects magically get delivered on time. Any pitfalls that come with your particular territory will only increase with outsourcing. An example of this is cutting-edge Java development. Remember all that testing time you needed last time? Well, double it.
2.Always, always, always factor in the time zone of your offshore partner. Not only must they communicate with you 20 time zones ahead of them, but also any third-party hardware or software vendor as well. Before you realise it, minor problems could take days to resolve simply because of the time differences.
3.K.I.S.S. (keep it simple, stupid) - still the best way. This is by no means an insult to offshore vendors, but people often forget that English is not the world’s first language. Forget the flowery language and hyperbole, just stick to the facts. And do not let anyone from marketing in on the email chain.
4.Skype Me! Personally, phone lines in India and Russia still have a long way to go. VOIP can really improve meeting interaction simply from the line quality.
5.Remember, there are very, very clear cultural differences between you and your offshore vendor. And no, it does not make you or anyone racist to bring that sort of thing up. I once managed a project team in Beijing, and I had no idea, for weeks, that things were going terribly. Why? Because the Chinese find it rude to say no and don’t like disappointing you.
6.Do you have a shit-hot project manager on your side? Do they? If not, forget it. Like in every other facet of business, solid communication is the key to success. Project transparency is key to this. You must have a partner that is willing to include you, warts and all, in all the project’s gory details. If you don’t want to be involved, then you should just quit now. Remember, to err is human, but to be ignorant is fatal.
Read full article at softwaredevelopmentblog.com On softwaredevelopmentblog.com Article Source: http://www.NewArticlesOnline.com
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