CSFs for an offsite software development project
December 28, 2008
When an offshore project fails, its very easy to lay all the blame on the offsite development team. Often, offshore success is portrayed as onshore failure.
This article identifies some of the critical success factors (CSF) for an effective delivery of an offshore project.
Define Your Outcomes
For any offshore endeavor to succeed, you have to first spell out its main criterion for success. If you are not able to define success, in clearest possible terms, the initiative is doomed to fail from the word go. Following are three easy steps to do this in an offshore development project would be:
Define the exact criterion for success. When can a project be considered a success?
Document the criterion; communicate it to the offshore project team and other executives in clear, accurate, and detailed terms. Finally, get the senior managers to buy in and sign off the project.
Define your product, solution, or application. Make sure you document the exact requirement. Document it to the nth degree.
Develop tracking systems that facilitate problem solving.
Develop measures and other tracking tools to record your progress on the project.
Look for Engineers, Not “Yes-Men,” says one expert “Although they tend to be the cheapest, steer clear of “yes-men.” He adds. It would then be easy to shift resources in response to the rapidly changing market scenarios or client demands.
Control, Measure and Track
This physical distance between the parent company and the offshore project team can be lessened to some extent with the tightening of the loop on the intermediary processes, so that eventually there is no multiplication of errors at any step of the way.
Do Delegate the Routine and the Tedious
That’s the primary reason you outsourced, didn’t you? So don’t feel guilty about it. “Never be afraid to ask your outsourcing partner to tackle tedious work such as QA and troubleshooting. Indeed, offloading the “grunt work” makes the lives of your in-house IT team easier,” says one expert.
Ensure Cultural Compatibility
If there is wide cultural disparity, some sort of onsite training should be in order. Adjustments may also have to be made in terms of time zone variations and shift requirements in order to reduce the turn around time on a 24X7-service platform.
Define Project Team Leads
Establish a single point of responsibility in both onsite and offsite operations. Even smaller outfits working on small size projects have begun to focus on project team bonding as part of a bigger initiative.
Create Space for Training
This should ideally be weaved into the Service Level Agreements (SLAs) spelling out the exact cost and time implications. Clauses, which can later turn into issues of discord must be dropped summarily.
All said and done, working offshore cannot be a one-time effort. It requires long-term commitments and constant work at maintaining a fruitful client-vendor relationship.
Comments
One Response to “CSFs for an offsite software development project”
Got something to say?
-
Advertisements
Text Links
Another important thing to consider in offshore outsourcing is fixing broken business process; I have seen companies outsource broken business processes to outsource vendor and think that it is their problem to manage it. First companies must fix the processes, standardize it and then they should consider outsourcing it.