Technology Strategy

Outsourcing software development has become a very effective way to get software projects delivered in the modern fast-paced business environment. Like any approach, it has potential benefits and things to take into consideration.   Some potential benefits: separation of concerns : separate a development project from BAU activities or other projects.  hit the ground running: potentially access to "ready made" teams of developers. visibility of cost: depending on contract, cost can be tied to outcomes specialisation: outsourced organisations may have core competence in areas that you do not and do not wish to strategically attain.  Here are a few things I think are worth considering based on my experiences over the last 25 years. Context The context of why you are choosing to outsource development is fundamentally important as is the context of what you are trying to develop (in terms of complexity) and how that ties in to your long term strategic objectives. For ...

Outsourcing and offshoring are two very fashionable approaches to reducing cost and ramping up resources. Whilst logically it would seem to make sense to hire skilled workers at a fraction of the price somewhere else in the world - in practice great care should be taken before embarking on such an endeavor. Firstly, numbers mean very little without a quality outcome. Many projects have positive outcomes, however, they are not the best of quality - just because something works, does not mean that it was designed well (with e.g. the customer, values and future in mind).You must know not only how to judge success, but also the quality of the artifacts that are created. As I have written before, communication is one of corner-stones of any organization. When projects are outsourced or offshored the first thing to suffer is communication - although it is often the most ignored. Time and time again, the value and importance of face to face and non-verbal communication has been written about...