techno.blog("Dion")

Linuxworld has a new article on the constant topic, offshoring, in 1 in 4 IT Jobs Going Offshore, Says Gartner; One Major “Offshoring Failure” in 2004 Predicted.

First of all, my main thoughts on offshoring are:

• It can make sense
• It often does NOT make sense
• You have to be smart on what to off shore (please don’t offshore items with substantial business domain knowledge)
• NDAs? IP Protection? Right. Be careful (depends on what/where of course)
• “You” and “your country” does not have special rights which mean you deserve certain jobs. We don’t have a problem if we get jobs from abroad do we? Earn it.
• Please spend money and effort on education so our kids are at the top of the educational tree…. and make them ready for the future economies

I have personally been involved in outsourced projects that both succeded and failed.

A few blanket reasons on the outcomes:

• Success: A lot of thought went into communication, choosing who did what, quality controls, etc. Small components were spec’d out nicer leaving minimal interpretation, and these components were not necessarily the core business units
• Failure: Bad communication and planning. No thought on how to manage this environment at all, weak processes, and no monitoring of the work, or who was doing it

I think there have been a LOT of failed projects. Of course companies will not come out and say “WE FAILED” will they. Who wants to be seen in that light? On that note, it will be interesting to see the public failures… and hopefully we can learn from those too.