Off-shore software development used to be an alternative for companies planning the very largest software projects. Today, however, it represents a strategic decision for almost everyone. And analyzing the trade-offs and the economics of off-shoring has become more challenging. These considerations have been at the root of several of the most active discussion threads among senior executives on ExpertCEO.
In this short entry, I’ll focus on one of the most difficult issues I’ve experienced as a consumer of off-shoring services–communications. Rapid and accurate communication is an essential element for success when your service organization has a different culture, speaks English as a second language, and operates in a different time zone.
During 2006/2007, I was the CEO at a company called Seriosity. It had an interesting mission–to apply on-line gaming concepts to enterprise software. When I took over, our entire development effort had been outsourced to an organization in the Ukraine. Early in my tenure, one incident persuaded me clearly how difficult the whole communication component can be.
We needed to implement a very simple enhancement to our application, and it required a few changes to the user interface in one of our screens. Our product manager carefully laid out the new version of the screen in HTML. He documented the fields and how they were to be used and computed. He documented how the database was to be updated, since he was a stickler for documentation. We all reviewed the changes and agreed that they were what we wanted. Then, for extra emphasis for the developers and to ensure they knew exactly what we wanted, he highlighted the changed items on the screen by circling them with a big red line. He then emailed the files and documentation to the development group in the Ukraine.
A day later, the new HTML screens were put up on our test site, and we excitedly took a look at them. As you have probably guessed by now, the new screens were perfect and incorporated everything, exactly as our product manager had specified – INCLUDING the red line circling the items designated to change! They interpreted everything we sent literally and weren’t able to differentiate our product manager’s helpful highlighting from the real requirements of the new format.
Bottom line: communicating effectively with an off-shoring organization, especially for small and evolving organizations, can be challenging. When considering the economics and time involved in managing such an effort, build cushion into your budget expectations to account for these inevitabilities, before deciding what’s right for your organization.
For more information on off-shoring, check out these sources:
Runtime – The Accelerance Blog
Bitpipe – Off-shore Outsourcing
October 24, 2008 at 10:56 pm |
Ken,
Your comments about importance of effective communication in managing remote work resonate in a big way for those of us who are in the business of helping employers manage work engagements with remote specialists. This basic principle around communication applies not only to what you describe as off-shoring, but of course in any remote work environment (local or otherwise) when it comes to driving great results.
Another compelling yet equally vexing dynamic in managing remote work is the asynchronous nature of the back-and-forth communication between parties. When time changes and nuances of language enter the picture, there’s no doubt that things get get off-track in no time.
That said, there’s perhaps nothing more satisfying than receiving a deliverable that meets or even exceeds your wildest expectation. I dare say some find it even a little bit addicting.