DaveBirchall.com on Business Technology

I recently came across a particularly damning forum thread where its users seem to have had all manner of negative experiences in dealing with IT ‘outsourcers’ I simply had to wade in with what I thought was a fairer view of the world…

WOW!

I can’t believe some of the poor opinions of outsourcing. Its a real shock to me. Of course there are always some horror stories out there and you hear them more often than the success stories. I will attempt to bring what I feel is a more balanced view.

Here’s my thoughts from the point of view of someone who works for an ‘outsourcer’ (www.solentive.com)

For a start, ‘outsourcing’ is the wrong word for the sort of relationship that is going to work. If you think you can simply throw them a brief and look back at the project a few months later, then you are setting yourself up for failure. A successful project can be largely attributed to continuous engagement with the domain experts. What do I mean by this? Well, you don’t need to be technical to start a business, you need to have a sound knowledge of the market you’re operating in and how the business will run in that market. Your development team (inhouse or ‘outsourced’) need to be the experts in software development and can write the code to meet your business objectives.

Our engagement model required continuous feedback from our domain experts so perhaps that’s different from the way some people think about outsourcers?

So if the question is to outsource or not, here’s some high level considerations.

1) Do you have the experience to project manage a team in the context of software development?
2) Do you have the technology to work efficiently in a collaborative manner?
3) Are you happy not to benefit from code reuse and write most of the code yourself?
4) Does you team have the breadth of experience to create a lean delivery?
5) Does you team have a build master, lead developer, project manager, architect?
6) Do you use continuous integration software?
7) Can you afford to budget into the build for project tracking software?

Or would you prefer just to concentrate in offering direction and leadership to a team of people with all the fundamentals in place? Would you prefer that those cost is spread across some other customers.

The fact is that a good software development partnership acts like an in house team and most definitely has a stake in the project.Software development, like any project related field always has some element of risk. In 15 years, we have never had a customer experience what has been described on this forum. The reason is down to people and process. So its important to realise that there can be huge difference when it comes to who you trust, but DIY software development is not always the answer.

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