Excerpt from Chapter 6: Controlling Your Outsourced Software Development
What man's mind can create, man's character can control. - Thomas Edison A software executive who was originally from India and is now working here in the U.S. complained about his experience with outsourcing. "I'm from India, I know the regional accents, and there is no confusion about what the software I need is supposed to do. And still I do not get the software I asked for!" Most communication issues with an offshore team are caused by language and cultural differences. Clearly, that is not the problem faced by this gentleman. Instead, he was dealing with an immature team made up of individuals with limited software development experience. His frustration has been experienced by many others. Most of it can be eliminated by choosing a good vendor. However, even with a good vendor, you want to have some way to control their activity - some way to track their progress and make corrections when things get off track. This chapter looks at ways to avoid these communication problems. It contains an overview of several tools, techniques, and methodologies. Entire books have been written about some of these techniques, but this overview will get you started and point you in the right direction. Software Management Tools Like a futuristic George Jetson, going to work and pushing a button all day, CTOs, CIOs, and IT project and program managers want a button of their own. The button they seek controls all aspects of their offshore software development, including collaboration, project management, and IT governance. When pushed the right way and the right number of times, the button produces perfect results every time. Unfortunately, not even a NASA control room full of buttons, switches, and monitors could encompass the variety of issues that can surface in offshoring projects. Still, a vast array of software tools is available that can monitor the status of various aspects of the offshoring process. In fact, so many software tools have become available that it would be difficult even to list them all. Several categories of tools have emerged to serve key areas of the management of offshore projects: software development, collaboration, project schedule and cost management, and IT governance.