Re: Re: ANN: Agile Outsourcing

I didn't read the original post or article but I've found that the
communications issue over the time-zones is always severely under-appreciated
and the impact is that even though there are quality people on both sides of
the wire, the communication level is diminished so greatly that it takes many
people at the offshoring firm to be equivalent to one person at the hiring
firm in terms of productivity.  This is another source of false economy.  Yet
another source of added cost is the much higher load on people at the hiring
firm to provide assistance and answers to questions for the offshore firm than
would be required if the project were done all in one place.

It's sad that the true end result is that people at the hiring firm have been
forced to work much longer hours to support this very un-productive model.
Offshore firms need to do a great deal more in order to support those hiring
firms and avoid the backlash that is inevitable from tired, over-worked people
who are paying the true hidden costs of the offshore model.  Otherwise, it will
only last a few more years like the outsourcing fad did back in the 90's.

Mike Corum
<All opinions my own>

-----Original Message-----
>Message: 2
>   Date: Tue, 06 Jan 2004 11:51:31 +0000
>   From: Steve Freeman <[email protected]>
>Subject: Re: Re: ANN: Agile Outsourcing
>
>I have seen both good and bad implementations of offshore and have come 
>to the (obvious) conclusion that it's a multiplier for the abilities of 
>the commissioning organisation. If they know what they're doing and use 
>the exercise to improve their processes then they'll gain. Otherwise, 
>they'll get more unmaintainable dross, cheaper than in-house but now 
>they're also hostage to a company half a world away.
>
>You also ignore cultural differences at your peril. Not including lots 
>of flights in the offshore budget is a false economy.
>
>S.
>
>sufi_saif wrote:
>> James,
>>          Your views on putting agile practices in the outsourced 
>> model are terrific.Some of the considerations on making the agile 
>> methodologies work in the offshore model are very practical. 
>> 
>> However, in times of pervasive reach of digital communication 
>> including emails;ip telephony;audio and video conferencing lot of the 
>> problems of time zone and cultural differences are increasingly 
>> becoming irrelevant. Therefore, an oblique reference to the relative 
>> de-merits of locations like India;Russia etc are unwaranted now. 
>> Indian firms have had the largest chunk of the outsourcing pie for a 
>> while. What is more important is the increasing customer satisfaction 
>> and credibility brought about by successful project deliveries over a 
>> course of time. Firms like WIPRO and Infosys are even managing 
>> successful ROI on remote network management services which are more 
>> affected by time zone differences etc. The regular app development 
>> projects, by this yardstick, should be still better. 
>> [...]




 

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