Imagine the following article is software code. Sure, it’s English and it somewhat comprehensible, but it’s going to take an investment to make it informative, clear and useful.
This is a continuing post on the series of outsourcing article writing. Outsource Article Content Part I, Outsource Article Content Part II. There are many parallels in outsourcing software development. Sure, you receive Java, Ruby, PHP code back, but many times it requires a significant investment in making the code comprehensible. Many people and organizations have experienced this missing of expectations when offshoring software development. It takes time and effort to find good partners.
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Developing software is an activity that requires intensive knowledge in the field of its expertise. The differences in cultures, languages, development practice, power structure within organization, quality standards, documentation, time zones, and software updates and estimations hinder outsourcing of software development to other countries in more ways than one. As it becomes a widespread practice for organizations, in outsourcing of software projects, it becomes increasingly important to understand the environment which affects these practices for an effective development activity. The key drivers in software development outsourcing, which mostly affects the effectiveness of the development, have evolved through the past experiences of organizations, while outsourcing their projects to companies in other countries.
Offshoring of software development is relatively new, and the various procedural aspects in this activity, such as, quality control, project management, faster development cycle, etc. have yet to be evolved fully, which understandably would provide a better confidence level. Constant research work is going on for the success of software development outsourcing. This is being done through understanding of the various models, while investigating into the factors of its success. These models have evolved through the interactions between the onsite and the outsourced organizations, and that’s how the learning curve has been derived out of years of experience. In order to make outsourcing a success, the offshore sourcing needs to be taken up as a serious effort, with the stakeholders needing to learn more quickly through the experiences that they have had, bringing out the best practices that could be achieved. Offshoring projects involve various socio-cultural processes inherent in the system of knowledge transfer, including the explicit and implicit, formal and informal exchanges of knowledge between the onsite and the offshore companies.
Some of the emphatic declarations that have been so far derived at, from the experience and previous results out of software development outsourcing, provide an understanding of the variables affecting the success of offshore software development. Some of these assertions include:
- The essential components of offshore software development success are the various dimension of the project itself, which are on-time completion, within-budget completion, costs and effort, meeting system requirements, system quality, user satisfaction, system use, and net system benefits.
- The process performance is a measure of assessing the functioning of the offshore partner. These performances could be classified as on-time and within-the-budget completion of the project by the offshore company, effectiveness of communication, etc. The performance of the software product implemented is also a measure in assessing the efficiency and capability of the offshore company.
- Understanding of the project being outsourced is one of the vital aspects of any project success. The offshore company would need to have adequate relationship management and engagement staff, who would be skilled to understand the process of outsourcing, there-by helping the onshore company to navigate through the complexity.
- A disciplined software project management is success by itself.
- The major issue regarding communication between the onsite organization and its offshore partner company has been identified as the most important aspect in any outsourcing of software development projects.
In outsourcing your software development, you would need to take care of the complex processes that it involves. These are further complicated by the ever changing business scenario, when requirements still remain fluid. Offshoring a software development project is not simply handing over a set of documents to the partner company. It needs a careful interactive session between the onsite and offshore company, discussing the project threadbare, providing the required detailed information possible for the project to be taken up by the partner company. The offshore company on the other hand would need to comprehend fully regarding the project implementation, taking into account all the possible pitfalls that may come up during execution.
The time zone separation, the cultural differences, communication, etc are all pitfalls in any outsourcing of projects. In addition, the geographical boundaries, and the changing definitions and relationships in the development effort are all part of the game of offshore software development.
Related posts:
- Challenges in Offshore Software Development
- Establishing and Managing Risk factors in Offshore Software Development
- Tools to Help Manage Offshore Software Development
- Offshore Software Development Debate
- Using Open Source in Offshore Software Development
on November 20, 2009, 7:36 am
Aman Mishra said:
http://www.peterkretzman.com/2008/02/14/offshore-development-the-reasons-why-not/