Key Points to Think about when Outsourcing Development

[Yankee427]

I worked for a software company where I was working closely with offshore developers in the Philippines. I created some very strong ties to the programmers and have since left the company but have stayed in contact with them through my former co-workers who also do not work for the company anymore.

I wanted to start a thread here just to describe some of the issues we ran into and describe a little bit of what it's like dealing with the development of a product using Outsourced development.

This description is for me in the USA describing to someone in India, the Philippines, or Singapore how I would like something to look or how something should be programmed. Dealing with programmers in other countries might be different than what we experienced. Our company was creating a SaaS program for professional companies such as law firms and accounting firms. I have since left the company and am working for a different company to build money to work on the fast lane venture.

1) Keep in mind the holidays for the country that the programmer resides in.
I couldn't tell you how many times we came in to work looking for an update from the previous night when in fact that day was a holidiay in the Philippines. They seemed to have about 1 holiday every 2 weeks. Compared to us in the USA, they have a holiday on national or regional election days and everything else. Keep track of all holidays so that if you are on deadlines, some unforseen holiday does not get in the way of that.

2) Keep in mind customs for the countries in which the programmers reside.
Lots of countries in Asia by culture are not as forward as we are in the west. I noticed a lot of times there could be a major issue, but the programmers did not want to come out and say it because it was your project or they did not want to hurt your feelings. Make sure to let them know that if they see a huge problem coming or something wrong with your idea or the programming just cant be implemented that way unless there is a huge extra cost to come out and say it up front. This saves much time and headache down the road.

3) Make sure to overdescribe what you want. Even something that you think is basic could turn into hours of extra programming.
There was one item we were trying to program in, just a basic change so that we could add a period to the end of the sentence. The software kept track of certain biennial periods of time and so period was a word used frequently back and forth between us. The period I meant was just the end of the sentence. He thought I meant to add an entire period which was an immense amount of programming. It was around 8 hours of extra programming just to have a period added to the end of a sentence for aesthetics really. Because of this I wasted one day of programming because then had to go back and send him proper item for the next day. I then started writing it as, please add a period (.) to the end of the sentence.
4) Make sure to have strict guidelines for the programmers and a very specific project plan.
This should be obvious but make sure you have strict deadlines, guidelines and a project plan or the programmers will not really stay focused and may create something that you do not want.

5) Make sure costs are clearly laid out up front and what you are paying for. Make sure you know what extras you would have to pay for.

6) Know when an email will suffice, and when a skype call may be necessary.
Certain items you can get away with just sending an instant message, email or text message. Other items will require you to describe it in more detail. If it is taking you more than about 3 attempts to say the same thing, its time to speak to them in person.

7) Talk to the programmers regularly and create a good working relationship with them.
The programmers may know what trends are in programming, so you may know basic programming and it should be done in a certain language. The developers usually stay current on all languages and may tell you that the language you want to use isn't up to date anymore and there may be a better one to use. They can really help you create a firm backend if you let them, while you focus on the frontend development.


I have a friend who is currently trying to build a fastlane business as a project manager, project broker, between developers and large companies.

If anyone else has any questions on project management of outsourced development feel free to post here and either I can try and answer it, or have him answer it.

I have been dealing with outsourced developing on a few of my projects, but am not as much involved with the process as I used to be. Working for many years with developers, I have learned quite a bit on the process. I could also let you know some good tricks to vet the developers without even knowing much programming yourself.

 

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