offshoring

I’ve written somewhat negatively about outsourcing in the past: primarily issuing warnings about doing it without proper planning, for the wrong reasons, or with expectations set too high. Recently, someone close to me has had his own outsourcing experience.  Software that he and his group would normally develop was being done by a group of [...]

Offshoring of software development is written off by some as not workable. Many have shared offshoring nightmares and horror stories in articles and blog postings. A recent survey says small company CIOs say they have little interest in increasing their offshore outsourcing in 2008. And many have stopped outsourcing altogether because of management challenges. 94% [...]

Hmm… I remember the bad old days and maybe some of you are still living tlhem, getting up early or staying late to call some foreign country..

NO, not bonding like guys going camping together, or a serendipitous encounter of old friends. I’m talking about some serious, planned, coming together of the team.

Unintended consequences? I certainly would agree with anyone who tells me there are appropriate circumstances and projects for outsourcing, whether on or off shore. As Jacky implied in her comment to my first post, when requirements are firm: such as localization or porting of a product that already runs in one language or on one [...]

Managing outsourced work: can that project be saved? An experienced, well-trained project manager is not enough to guarantee an outsourced development success. It also takes a reliable, trustworthy, competent supplier. Even if the best project management techniques were used to choose a supplier, circumstances can change, turning a reliable supplier into an unreliable one. Some [...]

Managing outsourced work Now that you’ve made your decision, picked a supplier, and written a contract, just kick back and let them do the work and deliver a final product. After all, they won’t fail because they promised they wouldn’t. And besides, you won’t pay them any more than they bid. Not so fast.

A few more things to do before making the outsourcing decision: 3. Create a Request for Proposal (RFP) that describes, in great detail, the software you want a supplier to create (the software requirements), anything else you want them to deliver (documentation, testing results), the testing they must do, the processes and tools you expect [...]

A company that has its own software development capability is driven to outsource software development in an attempt to save money or reduce costs. The company’s management may say they’re doing it because they can’t find enough qualified staff locally (or quickly), or so they won’t have to build up an additional development facility, or [...]

I have a friend (let’s call him Andy) who used to work for me and was a good engineer. He subsequently became VP Engineering at an outsourced software development company overseas. I have another friend (let’s call him Don) who also worked with me at a large software company in the sales group; we went [...]