RE: What are the most important issues during offshore software development

"The problem is not outsourcing to Asia. The problem is outsourcing."

 

I agree completely.  In my experience different countries tend to think
in different ways and attach different meanings to the same words, this
is evident to some extent even inside countries like the UK where we all
speak the same language (English) but have different sub cultures
(Irish, Scottish, English & Welsh).  Working with people in different
countries with radically different cultures and languages just further
exasperates this difference, so I'd back the assertion that a
non-English speaking company outsourcing to an English speaking company
would have the same issues as an English speaking company outsourcing to
a non-English speaking company.

 

In my experience out sourcing issues are not about technical competency
(which is something that should be sorted out before a contract is
signed) but about (technical) communication of concepts and ideas.  This
is generally something that is severally overlooked especially in
English speaking countries (e.g. the UK) which generally have lower
levels of bilingual residents, than non English speak countries (e.g.
Holland) as unless you speak more than one language it is very hard to
grasp just how different (and difficult) it can make communication i.e.
concepts or phrases you take for granted may not even exist in your out
sourcing companies native culture or language which means it will not be
trivial for them to understand, this does not make them any less
competent than you are just different.

 

Just my opinion though...

 

From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On
Behalf Of Luiz Esmiralha
Sent: Thursday, July 03, 2008 9:39 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [pragprog] What are the most important issues during
offshore software development

 

The problem is not outsourcing to Asia. The problem is outsourcing. I
bet my Gibson Les Paul that results would be much poorer if, for
instance, brazilian companies offshored systems development to
american or german companies. After all, how many americans or germans
out there can communicate well in Portuguese?

Software professionals from India, Brazil, China and Eastern Europe
are just as knowledgeable as those from North America and Western
Europe, so it is offshoring that hurts product quality.

Best regards,
Luiz Esmiralha

On Thu, Jul 3, 2008 at 1:01 PM, <[email protected]
<mailto:jwenting%40hornet.demon.nl> > wrote:
>> On Thu, Jul 3, 2008 at 1:21 AM, shi lin <[email protected]
<mailto:forrest.shi%40gmail.com> > wrote:
>> > Yeah, there are some many successful offshore stories.
>>
>> And Enron was a "success story" once -- before it wasn't. :-)
>>
> Yup. Been there, done that, seen the disasters.
>
>> > That is why US or European companies outsourced their projects
>>
>> Companies outsource because it's cheaper. In the cases I'm personally
>> familiar with, the project owners simply didn't care that the end
>> product
>> was unmaintainable, barely-usable crap.
>>
> Mostly. More often the project owners were forced into it be
boardrooms who
> didn't want to know.
> Offshoring was "kewl" and made you look "modern" because "everybody
does it
> so it must be good".
>
>> Their only goal was to show their boss the project was done, check
>> it off, look good for the next performance/salary review.
>>
> The goal was usually to do it on the cheap, never mind the
consequences as
> I'll no longer be managing the project after it enters maintenance.
>
>> Forgive me if I'm skeptical of all the white-paper "success
stories"...
>>
> Nothing to forgive.
> While there are successes (I've seen them) those do NOT involve
offshoring
> to Asia and only involve offshoring the mechanical work of turning
highly
> detailed technical designs into code modules.
>
>