6 ms·

I think one of the biggest problems with outsourcing comes from 2 groups of people. Generally these are the most vocal proponents at first, only to become some

I think one of the biggest problems with outsourcing comes from 2 groups of people. Generally these are the most vocal proponents at first, only to become some of the most vocal opponents later. The way I would classify them, generally speaking, are: (a) business people looking to keep costs down but don't know the first thing about running a technology project, (b) those who think "outsourcing" means "I tell you the idea, and you do all the work". Technology projects (especially custom ones) are hard, and they require a lot of due diligence and hard work from all parties involved. I would never recommend a non-technical person / company to try outsourcing. It's a recipe for disaster. That is unless you fully trust the person / group of people who you're putting in charge of the project. EDIT: Thought I'd add a clarification here. Never recommend outsourcing of CUSTOM projects that is. Cookie cutter solutions it's obviously a different story... And I guess another edit would be to differentiate "scale" of a project. Large scale projects which will be "centerpieces" to a company, are the kinds of projects that I read about being outsourced which alot of times seem to turn bad.

odonnellryan 11y ago
> "outsourcing" means "I tell you the idea, and you do all the work". It is okay for anyone to think this, but in any project it is not okay for the workers to leave it uncorrected. I do contract software projects in the US (near NYC). I get this on every project. A loose scope and a general idea, and then the go-ahead. It is my responsibility to refine the scope. Sometimes that takes an email, sometimes a longer discussion, and sometimes it takes a small prototype for the client to play with to find out if it is right for them. It would be incredibly dishonest to just make a project based on what I saw from the beginning. It'd be dishonest of anyone in any industry. "This is what you asked for!!!" does not cut it.
- datashovel 11y ago
  I think I agree to a point. What I discuss ahead of time with potential clients is the fact that in order for the project to be successful they need to be engaged and willing to work with me toward what eventually will be the end product. I've never received what I would consider a "sufficient spec" ahead of time, but I'm always (as long as the client is engaged with me and with the project) able to do the extra legwork to come to a concrete understanding of what we're trying to accomplish. I have, early in my consulting career, worked with companies where there was literally no feedback, insufficient specifications, and we had no access to the people who would eventually be using the software. It was at this time, early in my consulting career, when I decided this was a critical intangible I must have in a potential client before I start negotiating an actual contract.
  - odonnellryan 11y ago
    You're certainly right. But, the same goes for if they were developing the software in-house: you need to have the customer use the software. It is probably a bit more pronounced in consulting, I agree. This is extreme programming, at least part of it. It is called a lot of things (client tests, cards, whatever) but the goal is the same: to get frequent and critical client feedback. I've had the same experience as you. Asked to implement something, but you KNOW they are not using the software.
  - mcv 11y ago
    And this is exactly the kind of thing that's a lot easier with someone in the same country, the same culture, and the same language. The big problem with outsourcing to another country is that you've got a big communication gap in the middle of your project, and you need to compensate for that. (Though you can also easily run into this problem without outsourcing, but I every step between the programmer and the user/customer makes this problem more likely.)
- Loic 11y ago
  I could not agree more. I have been doing project work for big chemical companies in the past 8 years. The full project description is usually less than 20 lines and I work hand in hand with my customers to get the project done the way they want. I am talking about complex thermodynamic modelling and HPC code here. The kind of thing where you basically need a PhD in the scientific area + a full stack understanding of programming to do it right. They outsource the work to me and they are really happy at the end.
- VLM 11y ago
  > those who think "outsourcing" means "I tell you the idea, and you do all the work" What mystifies me is people will laugh in your face if you try this outside programming, but are taken seriously almost exclusively by the programming field, even decades after its acknowledged most projects fail. Clearly other forms of enlightenment have failed so far; maybe extreme sarcasm would work? We've tried everything else and it hasn't sunk in yet... So I've got an idea. Psychedelic accordion music. Awesome huh? Now unfortunately I can't play the accordion, but I'm sure I can just take advantage of some poor person on the other side of the planet who can play an accordion and currently can't afford to eat. On one hand I have to move fast and break things so I'll need to hire the first accordion player I ever meet, on the other hand I need to appear to be pinching pennies so I'll need to hire the cheapest accordion player on the entire internet (and what could possibly go wrong with that?), and on the third hand I could only hire ivy league grad accordion players who live in only one town but then I'd have to complain constantly about the small supply and high salary demands and extreme groupthink ... Eh I'll get the cheap guy, what could possibly go wrong. I've got another idea, I'm going to disintermediate the legacy plumbing industry by positioning my new unicorn as an intermediary (err pretend not to notice that) in the lucrative and exciting excrement removal field. Unfortunately I don't know anything about plumbing or sanitation or building codes, but move fast and break things, and I can just hire some people who know what they're doing, I'm an ideas guy you know, so I deserve all the rewards. True, the guys who told me they know plumbing, also do not know plumbing, and we're a little unclear on what flows downhill or uphill or whatever hill. But that's OK because our unicorn's iOuthouse shipping rate is going exponential. I even greenwashed my product by making it out of organically grown free range hemp cardboard, which is a good selling point for the tens, maybe hundreds of potential customers. Oh wait, did I say that? I meant tens to hundreds of millions of potential customers. I also integrated "social" and "chat" by implementing "long line to the bathroom" although the lawyers claim professional sporting events have prior art. Oh well off to collect the billions I'm entitled to, got an IPO to arrange!
  - osullivj 11y ago
    LOL! iOuthouse, excrement removal - very droll ;)
  - 11y ago
- ZeroGravitas 11y ago
  Apparently this is how certain companies make money from government contracts. They deliver exactly what is asked for, at an unreasonably low bid, but then make the real money when the client suddently realises, far too late, that what they asked for wasn't what they needed.
  - chris_wot 11y ago
    Which is the fault of the government department who should have spent time and money on a competent business analyst to work out what was required. If you outsource your work with specific requirements and don't involve the outsourcing company in the development of your requirements, which they then deliver in full, then you have nothing to complain about.
    - s73v3r 11y ago
      Well no, it's mainly the fault of Congress and procurement rules which require going with the lowest bidder. And it also is the fault of the companies that do this.
      - chris_wot 11y ago
        I'm genuinely interested - can you point me to those procurement rules?
  - wnevets 11y ago
    Why even include the government caveat? That's how subcontracting works most of the time.
    - odonnellryan 11y ago
      This is true.
emsy 11y ago
> (b) those who think "outsourcing" means "I tell you the idea, and you do all the work". This is especially bad because those people are in my experience bad at communicating their ideas. Experienced external developers will know when and what to ask to minimize extra workload. Even more experienced developers will know when to shut up and just bill the extra time due to changing specifications.
- datashovel 11y ago
  I find I can generally guide a conversation in the right direction, but I also find that I can never approach a project as though I'll be the person to tell the client when a project is done. The client has to understand their product well enough to be able to tell me not only if / when it's done, but if it's not done they need to be able to explain precisely why it's not done. Not in a confrontational way, but in an exploratory way. As long as we continue to discover reasons to continue to work on the project, the expectation has to be that I'll continue to bill for the hours I put in.
JupiterMoon 11y ago
> Never recommend outsourcing of CUSTOM projects that is. Cookie cutter solutions it's obviously a different story... The thing is that non-technical people may not recognise what is custom and what is cookie cutter.
- ape4 11y ago
  Just like Instagram but...
  - raverbashing 11y ago
    "you can build me a facebook clone for $50 right?"
matart 11y ago
In my limited experience you are spot on. Non technical people cannot manage these projects. They don't really understand the project themselves and by outsourcing they think they get to pass their problems on down the line. These people only look at cost and cannot determine skill level or product quality. It ends up costing 2-3 times as much if they went with a real developer from the start.
sliverstorm 11y ago
Cookie cutter solutions it's obviously a different story... Are they even considered outsourcing? Like, Samsung licenses ARM. They are said to have licensed IP, rather than said to have outsourced CPU development.
- datashovel 11y ago
  I'm not sure what the precise definition would be. But I was mostly thinking of web-based solutions. Like the difference between a custom solution that could potentially require an entire team of developers vs a shop that, for example, specializes in customizing WordPress templates. Even though there is some customization involved, it's an example of what I would define as "cookie cutter" solution in web development. And I think that same concept probably translates over to the difference between consulting firms building fully custom solutions vs. consulting firms coming in to customize licensed software (like Microsoft or Oracle, etc).

odonnellryan 11y ago

> "outsourcing" means "I tell you the idea, and you do all the work". It is okay for anyone to think this, but in any project it is not okay for the workers to leave it uncorrected. I do contract software projects in the US (near NYC). I get this on every project. A loose scope and a general idea, and then the go-ahead. It is my responsibility to refine the scope. Sometimes that takes an email, sometimes a longer discussion, and sometimes it takes a small prototype for the client to play with to find out if it is right for them. It would be incredibly dishonest to just make a project based on what I saw from the beginning. It'd be dishonest of anyone in any industry. "This is what you asked for!!!" does not cut it.

datashovel 11y ago
I think I agree to a point. What I discuss ahead of time with potential clients is the fact that in order for the project to be successful they need to be engaged and willing to work with me toward what eventually will be the end product. I've never received what I would consider a "sufficient spec" ahead of time, but I'm always (as long as the client is engaged with me and with the project) able to do the extra legwork to come to a concrete understanding of what we're trying to accomplish. I have, early in my consulting career, worked with companies where there was literally no feedback, insufficient specifications, and we had no access to the people who would eventually be using the software. It was at this time, early in my consulting career, when I decided this was a critical intangible I must have in a potential client before I start negotiating an actual contract.
- odonnellryan 11y ago
  You're certainly right. But, the same goes for if they were developing the software in-house: you need to have the customer use the software. It is probably a bit more pronounced in consulting, I agree. This is extreme programming, at least part of it. It is called a lot of things (client tests, cards, whatever) but the goal is the same: to get frequent and critical client feedback. I've had the same experience as you. Asked to implement something, but you KNOW they are not using the software.
- mcv 11y ago
  And this is exactly the kind of thing that's a lot easier with someone in the same country, the same culture, and the same language. The big problem with outsourcing to another country is that you've got a big communication gap in the middle of your project, and you need to compensate for that. (Though you can also easily run into this problem without outsourcing, but I every step between the programmer and the user/customer makes this problem more likely.)
Loic 11y ago
I could not agree more. I have been doing project work for big chemical companies in the past 8 years. The full project description is usually less than 20 lines and I work hand in hand with my customers to get the project done the way they want. I am talking about complex thermodynamic modelling and HPC code here. The kind of thing where you basically need a PhD in the scientific area + a full stack understanding of programming to do it right. They outsource the work to me and they are really happy at the end.
VLM 11y ago
> those who think "outsourcing" means "I tell you the idea, and you do all the work" What mystifies me is people will laugh in your face if you try this outside programming, but are taken seriously almost exclusively by the programming field, even decades after its acknowledged most projects fail. Clearly other forms of enlightenment have failed so far; maybe extreme sarcasm would work? We've tried everything else and it hasn't sunk in yet... So I've got an idea. Psychedelic accordion music. Awesome huh? Now unfortunately I can't play the accordion, but I'm sure I can just take advantage of some poor person on the other side of the planet who can play an accordion and currently can't afford to eat. On one hand I have to move fast and break things so I'll need to hire the first accordion player I ever meet, on the other hand I need to appear to be pinching pennies so I'll need to hire the cheapest accordion player on the entire internet (and what could possibly go wrong with that?), and on the third hand I could only hire ivy league grad accordion players who live in only one town but then I'd have to complain constantly about the small supply and high salary demands and extreme groupthink ... Eh I'll get the cheap guy, what could possibly go wrong. I've got another idea, I'm going to disintermediate the legacy plumbing industry by positioning my new unicorn as an intermediary (err pretend not to notice that) in the lucrative and exciting excrement removal field. Unfortunately I don't know anything about plumbing or sanitation or building codes, but move fast and break things, and I can just hire some people who know what they're doing, I'm an ideas guy you know, so I deserve all the rewards. True, the guys who told me they know plumbing, also do not know plumbing, and we're a little unclear on what flows downhill or uphill or whatever hill. But that's OK because our unicorn's iOuthouse shipping rate is going exponential. I even greenwashed my product by making it out of organically grown free range hemp cardboard, which is a good selling point for the tens, maybe hundreds of potential customers. Oh wait, did I say that? I meant tens to hundreds of millions of potential customers. I also integrated "social" and "chat" by implementing "long line to the bathroom" although the lawyers claim professional sporting events have prior art. Oh well off to collect the billions I'm entitled to, got an IPO to arrange!
- osullivj 11y ago
  LOL! iOuthouse, excrement removal - very droll ;)
- 11y ago
ZeroGravitas 11y ago
Apparently this is how certain companies make money from government contracts. They deliver exactly what is asked for, at an unreasonably low bid, but then make the real money when the client suddently realises, far too late, that what they asked for wasn't what they needed.
- chris_wot 11y ago
  Which is the fault of the government department who should have spent time and money on a competent business analyst to work out what was required. If you outsource your work with specific requirements and don't involve the outsourcing company in the development of your requirements, which they then deliver in full, then you have nothing to complain about.
  - s73v3r 11y ago
    Well no, it's mainly the fault of Congress and procurement rules which require going with the lowest bidder. And it also is the fault of the companies that do this.
    - chris_wot 11y ago
      I'm genuinely interested - can you point me to those procurement rules?
- wnevets 11y ago
  Why even include the government caveat? That's how subcontracting works most of the time.
  - odonnellryan 11y ago
    This is true.

emsy 11y ago

> (b) those who think "outsourcing" means "I tell you the idea, and you do all the work". This is especially bad because those people are in my experience bad at communicating their ideas. Experienced external developers will know when and what to ask to minimize extra workload. Even more experienced developers will know when to shut up and just bill the extra time due to changing specifications.

datashovel 11y ago
I find I can generally guide a conversation in the right direction, but I also find that I can never approach a project as though I'll be the person to tell the client when a project is done. The client has to understand their product well enough to be able to tell me not only if / when it's done, but if it's not done they need to be able to explain precisely why it's not done. Not in a confrontational way, but in an exploratory way. As long as we continue to discover reasons to continue to work on the project, the expectation has to be that I'll continue to bill for the hours I put in.

JupiterMoon 11y ago

> Never recommend outsourcing of CUSTOM projects that is. Cookie cutter solutions it's obviously a different story... The thing is that non-technical people may not recognise what is custom and what is cookie cutter.

ape4 11y ago
Just like Instagram but...
- raverbashing 11y ago
  "you can build me a facebook clone for $50 right?"

matart 11y ago

In my limited experience you are spot on. Non technical people cannot manage these projects. They don't really understand the project themselves and by outsourcing they think they get to pass their problems on down the line. These people only look at cost and cannot determine skill level or product quality. It ends up costing 2-3 times as much if they went with a real developer from the start.

sliverstorm 11y ago

Cookie cutter solutions it's obviously a different story... Are they even considered outsourcing? Like, Samsung licenses ARM. They are said to have licensed IP, rather than said to have outsourced CPU development.

datashovel 11y ago
I'm not sure what the precise definition would be. But I was mostly thinking of web-based solutions. Like the difference between a custom solution that could potentially require an entire team of developers vs a shop that, for example, specializes in customizing WordPress templates. Even though there is some customization involved, it's an example of what I would define as "cookie cutter" solution in web development. And I think that same concept probably translates over to the difference between consulting firms building fully custom solutions vs. consulting firms coming in to customize licensed software (like Microsoft or Oracle, etc).