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Here is my experience leading an offshore development project and it is consistent with the experiences of some friends of mine from other companies.
The big thing you need to watch for is domain expertise. If you are developing an application that has any sort of business logic in it whatsoever you need to be sure the offshore partner understands the fundamentals of the business and the jargon that goes with it. OR, you need to write a very large requirements document that covers every possibility of what should take place for every form, field, algorithm, etc.
Another thing to look at are the real capabilities of the company. They may say they are CMMI level 5 certified and have the papers to prove it. But, will they follow that on your project? Our project got behind schedule and they threw bodies at it and threw process out the window. We were happy to get something from the project that was stable enough that we could re-write over time to make it work properly.
You need to look at deliverables and schedules. Our experience was that status updates and reports were all great until it came time to deliver code and at that point you saw lots of stubs or poorly implemented code or code that is not even used in the application, etc.
The people I have talked to that have had a good experience with offshore development also had somebody there on site monitoring development. We didn't have the ability to do so.
Of course, time zone issues could be a problem too.
If you are looking at doing this to save money be sure you are comparing apples to apples. You may be giving up some of the programming and development tasks and costs but your project management and requirements management costs are going to go up as well.
You may have a great experience with offshore development but we didn't.
Categories: R&D and Quality
I have used many offshore vendors for website development but never for application development and wish to know ahead the problems that are likely to happen -- beyond what I can guess. The new project is an online database which pulls items and also performs calculations and reporting , and this product is optionally downloadable. Thanx, if all this helps to know for your reply.
"take place for every form, field, algorithm, etc. "
Ha, I was thinking about this as you wrote!
I use Elance. Deliverables are in theory a better possibility here because people who do big bucks on Elance have a very public exposure. I figure if they have a super high rating AND they've done $250,000++ on Elance they can't afford to screw up.
And ya, for my application it's gonna be pretty unusual stuff for the Indian guys. I pitty the guy who has to convert US measurements into metric, and back... cubic yards into lbs... lin feet into dollars.
But you've reinforced the details, in my mind. My project should be about $4,000 offshore rates. Probably a lot smaller than yours or your friends was.
I second everything smadeira says. Also consider working an incremental/agile development cycle that requires the development team to deliver working code every month to six weeks. Working code beats reports in any development environment. People balk at the "added" expense but if it is more costly consider it insurance. I doubt that it is. It simply forces issues upfront.
Good luck.
(I know there will be a ton of resistance. And I predict that in retrospect you will wish that you had worked this way.)
An even better way: get a local system architect to convert my vision into specs, then hand specs offshore.
But how much $ is that? I figure an experienced architect (why would you use anyone else) would run me $60/hr if the person were employed full-time and was doing this moonlight. Might take 15 hrs. Maybe 100 hrs. Dunno. But at 15 hrs this is a potent solution, I think.
The offshore software development company is in the forefront of the new wave of solutions that address these issues, which are most acutely felt in the West. Professional research groups, such as Gartner, point to offshore software development in India as a hub of growth for offshore software companies, and product development companies. Other centers include Ireland, Canada and Israel, and to an extent, South Africa and Brazil.
It's all about the contractor's skills.
Off-shoring was all about labor costs and now that is becoming a moot point. The fact is, a good software company can negate the advantage of low programming costs by innovative thinking. I've just now begun to understand this myself, so you may have to bring your thinking up to the minute to see it.
If you don't understand software development. Go with a local (or at least reasonable time zone difference) company so they can hold your hand during the entire process.
"The offshore software development company is in the forefront of the new wave of solutions that address these issues..."
No they aren't. Everyone in the software development industry is facing similar problems and we all are finding answers to those problems.
If you need all the answers about the offshore software development, please don't hesitate to give me a call 858-405-2111 or email me at chris@globalcybersoft.com
You will judge yourself after my share with you all the experiences.
www.globalcybersoft.com
Chris Nguyen
858-405-2111
We are a small software house based in India, providing offshore applications/ products development services to clients in the USA. In our experience of last 6 years, we found that success depends on clarity of specs and communications. Yes, it surely helps if you have a domain expertise with the offshore team. But even if the company that you wish to hire does not have that in-house, they can hire an expert for the project. Regular status calls (at least twice a week) with screen sharing to view the development status helps. Another factor that helps is an initial prototype with all screen mock-ups with corresponding logic documented by the off-shore team, should be reviewed early in the life cycle.
You may reach me at schadda@mindgridtech.com in case you need any additional info, clarifications.
Hi pmarc
Your situation is very common. It is next to impossible to find a good offshore outsourcing partner. Thats also why I established my consulting company after having worked with it for several years on both sides. We don't do any development ourself but find the right match for companies that need it. We have a portfolio of pre-qualified companies that we test for both technical skill, but even more importantly process capability. I don't say you can buy your cmmi L5, but it is close. Even after having lived in south asia for several years and some of my best friends are from there I would never trust them, but control them. That is also why we have a man physically in place that go out and check on progress on site for the projects we enable. We also go over their references which are contacted personally and the financial status to make sure they are in it for the long haul.
The agile development which Susan suggests are also a very good suggestions as well as the domain expertise. Talking the same language (business and culture wise) is important and most often the deciding factor as the technical skills are there.
One last point i want to stress is that in especially India a lot of subcontracting is happening and especially in the medium to large offshore providers. You should get CV's of the people working on your project and make sure they are also the ones on the job. Otherwise you risk having it done in a small karala village ;)
You are welcome to contact me if you are need more support, but otherwise good luck as great benefits are possible from offshore development, and saving not being on the top of my list.
Best
Claus Bang Olsen, Lilienhoj Consulting
Claus Bang Olsen, CEO & Partner Lilienhoj Consultion, The guide in outsourcing
To choose a competent offshore partner is one of the most difficult tasks that many face today. In my experience of heading an outsource product development company, I have noticed a consistent trend when it comes to choose a partner, 99% of the company evaluates them in the parameter of cost. I completely agree with Smadeira Ã?"If you are looking at doing this to save money be sure you are comparing apples to applesÃ?"
According to me the most vital points that a company should consider while selecting a partner are as follows:
1. Experience in the particular service that you want to outsource?
2. How well your partners understand your business model?
3. Does your provider have skilled, trained and qualified professionals how can efficiently handle your projects?
4. Does your chosen partner have the infrastructure, technology and software to support your project?
5. Does your partner have a Local presence or an instant support team?
Thanks,
Satyen Jain
CEO, Leo Technosoft
Outsource Product Development Company
www.leotechnosoft.net
From my experience it is very tough to choose the right one. The worker must understand exactly what customer want. As you have good experience working on web development with offshore developers, it will easier for you and you will gain a good result. We have several customers those came to us after gaining some worst experience. It was difficult to handle them at first. But we managed to do that anyway.
Wish you better luck.
Minhajul Shaoun
CEO,
ASTGD
http://astgd.com
am a bit late to this particular party and i will say this, that offshoring is not suitable for all clients. it suits some, it does not suit others.
blanket statements that offshoring does not work or is not economical is plain wrong.
Marc, if your budget is in that space, then you shoudl be looking at working with companies of 5-50 people and not more than that. and yes Susan is right.
for projects of that size, Agile IS the way to go.
re smadeira's comments, i am surprised that in this day and age there are vendors who delivery some kind of code only towards the end of the project. most mature vendors, irrespective of their size, do weekly code dumps on client servers for clients to have a look at.
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