James S. Grisham
"I always try to be pessimistic at start and optimistic at the enf of project..."

Offshore Software Development Relationship Management

Recent reports show that Clients' satisfaction with Offshore Software Development relationship is continuously dropping down. It is the fault of both sides of Offshore Software Development relationships.

There are a number of reasons for it. Clients put too much hopes because of over promising at the pre-sales and sales phases, and feel upset when their IT Project comes short. Cultural gap and misunderstanding of business needs often cause problems as well. Tremendous rate of personnel turnover within a IT Project, which is usual for Offshore Software Development Teams, is another important reason for dissatisfaction.

Professional management is the key to successful Offshore Software Development relationship. In Development Projects, management must begin with the earliest phases, from the first words of communication between Client and provider. And it must continue during all phases including requirements specification, Software Implementing, Verification And Validation and delivery.

If you outsource a IT Project, there is an aspect which is worth the greatest attention. Its name is communication. The best thing you can do is communicating with all participants of the process. Do not limit your attention to sales manager and project manager. You should communicate with requirements specifier in order to be sure that all your business needs are covered in the system requirements; you should communicate with programming team leader and testing team leader to discuss technical details of the system.

A representative of Offshore Software Development company, either sales manager or a top-management person, has to provide a Client with contacts of all key people in the IT Project. Show your commission to the IT Project and reply each time they ask your feedback, especially in agile-based Development Projects assuming that each iteration must be accepted by Client. Otherwise, lack of communication may lead to the terms extension in the best case and to the whole IT Project failure in the worst case.

Offshore Software Development Development Projects are more risky than onshore Development Projects. So, risk management is one of the core disciplines in managing such activity. Ask your| service<> provider to send you a risk list for your IT Project and a plan of activities aimed to deal with each of the risks. Any risk, even the risk of lack of Software Implementing personal because of high rate of turnover, can be eliminated if managed in time.

The success of outsourcing IT Project depends not only on management skills of top managers and project managers of Offshore Software Development provider, but also on customer's management skills which include communicative, business and negotiation talent.

First writen online on 7/13/2007