I know there has been a fair amount of discussion on here about outsourcing/offs
ID: 639119 • Letter: I
Question
I know there has been a fair amount of discussion on here about outsourcing/offshoring, and the general opinion seems to be that at best it is difficult, and at worst it fails.
I have direct experience of offshoring myself; a previous company, where I was a development manager, wanted to send some development offshore, and we ran a pilot scheme to see how well it would work.
Of course, it was a complete failure, although it is not completely clear to me whether this was down to the offshore developers being less talented, the process, or other factors (no doubt it was really a combination).
I can see as a business how offshoring looks attractive (much lower day rate), but as far as I can see, the only way it could possibly work is if you do exceptionally detailed design up front, with incredibly detailed specifications; and by the time you have invested in producing that, you have probably spent as nearly as much as if you had written the actual code locally (which I think is an instance of No Silver Bullet).
So, what I want to know is, does anyone here have any experience of offshoring actually working ever? Especially if there are any success stories of it working in a semi-agile way?
I know there are developers here from all over the World; has anyone worked on an offshore project they consider successful?
Explanation / Answer
Talking from personal experience of having managed off-shore projects from an on-shore base the most significant challenges are:
misaligned interests
availability of information
control
security and compliance
communication
As far as "does it EVER work" concerned: it does. It doesn't work well though. Most people can run, but it doesn't mean that most people can run as fast as Usain Bolt.
Communication
Normally this is brought forward as the biggest challenge, but it is not. It is the least of all problems, which doesn