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The thing that's consistently baffled me with projects like this is why technical milestones aren't encoded in contracts. In your example, if they can't demons

by ethbro 7y ago

The thing that's consistently baffled me with projects like this is why technical milestones aren't encoded in contracts. In your example, if they can't demonstrate a PoC container or automated environment creation in x% of the schedule, the contract is terminated. With similar milestones throughout the project. It's like traditional PM project pacing goes out the window when dealing with contractors. It's not a secret these shops put the least capable people on contracts they think they can get away with, so why not better incentivize them to bring a more skilled team?

dplgk 7y ago
From my experience only: the idea to outsource to under experienced developers is done by upper management who want credit for saving the company tons of money. Then they leave the company in a year or two after claiming great money saving victory and moving on to their next scam C-level job. If you build in milestones, then it's a chance to prove that the executive made a bad decision and wasted money on a useless transition. I've witnessed this in 3 different companies.
klausjensen 7y ago
I witnessed an outsourcing process first hand, where Cognizant was supposed to come in a handle X, Y and Z tasks (pretty much all IT services) in a large energy company. By the time it became clear, that they were not able to deliver on their promises at anything that resembles an acceptable level, most people with actual skills were no longer around (FTEs and contractors). My second best suggestion would be to let an outsourcing partner take over small areas and do a gradual transition as you monitor their performance and quality. The problem is, that these companies have specialized "window-dressing" consultants, that are actually smart and have real skills. As soon as the contract is won, the people with skills are moved to the next contract, that needs to be won - and they are replaced by extremely low-paid resources without qualifications. By the time the company realizes this, it is too late. I felt quite sorry for these under-qualified people. Imagine going to work every day, barely eeking out a living, while being completely unable to deliver on what you are supposed to do, all while being shouted at by some local slavedriver/manager with a large moustache - for doing your best. ...So the reason I said "second-best" is because I do not believe there is any reason to do business with the Indian outsourcing companies at all, unless you are an exec whos bonus depends on "outsourcing x % to low-cost countries" - and you do not give a fuck about the company as a whole.
- blaser-waffle 7y ago
  > I witnessed an outsourcing process first hand, where Cognizant was supposed to come in a handle X, Y and Z tasks (pretty much all IT services) in a large energy company. By the time it became clear, that they were not able to deliver on their promises at anything that resembles an acceptable level, most people with actual skills were no longer around (FTEs and contractors). This is happening to my group right now...
  - klausjensen 7y ago
    Start looking for a new job and leave.
robjan 7y ago
These days aren't we all trying to move towards more agile working practices? The problem is that fixed cost is pretty much at odds with this. I've worked on projects where we came to a compromise and had a fixed cost per story point, and the in house PO had to agree with estimations, but the vendor quickly started taking liberties and massively overestimating everything. When we called them out, they started compromising on quality instead leading us to code review everything. The overhead ended up being so large that we might as well have in-housed the project.
- lmilcin 7y ago
  Actually, I think fixed cost projects are better. With fixed cost projects you negotiate price for the expected outcome and it is much easier to show if the success criteria were not met. With time and materials projects it is almost impossible to get good results from the vendor. The vendor meets his goals when they deliver the team and they can't be held responsible for results, typically. If you are not happy with the people they delivered you can of course protest but then you just get different people and the people you protested will find place in another project and it does not matter much to the vendor.
  - robjan 7y ago
    Fixed cost works on relatively simple, low risk, low innovation projects but not so much when there are lots of unknowns and emerging requirements. An example of low risk would be building a marketing website and high risk would be creating a new system from scratch to replace poorly defined business processes.
    - lmilcin 7y ago
      You don't really want to outsource innovative projects. You want to keep your best staff with you and have it work on most important projects and outsource the least important but highest volume of work.

by ethbro 7y ago

dplgk 7y ago

From my experience only: the idea to outsource to under experienced developers is done by upper management who want credit for saving the company tons of money. Then they leave the company in a year or two after claiming great money saving victory and moving on to their next scam C-level job. If you build in milestones, then it's a chance to prove that the executive made a bad decision and wasted money on a useless transition. I've witnessed this in 3 different companies.

klausjensen 7y ago

I witnessed an outsourcing process first hand, where Cognizant was supposed to come in a handle X, Y and Z tasks (pretty much all IT services) in a large energy company. By the time it became clear, that they were not able to deliver on their promises at anything that resembles an acceptable level, most people with actual skills were no longer around (FTEs and contractors). My second best suggestion would be to let an outsourcing partner take over small areas and do a gradual transition as you monitor their performance and quality. The problem is, that these companies have specialized "window-dressing" consultants, that are actually smart and have real skills. As soon as the contract is won, the people with skills are moved to the next contract, that needs to be won - and they are replaced by extremely low-paid resources without qualifications. By the time the company realizes this, it is too late. I felt quite sorry for these under-qualified people. Imagine going to work every day, barely eeking out a living, while being completely unable to deliver on what you are supposed to do, all while being shouted at by some local slavedriver/manager with a large moustache - for doing your best. ...So the reason I said "second-best" is because I do not believe there is any reason to do business with the Indian outsourcing companies at all, unless you are an exec whos bonus depends on "outsourcing x % to low-cost countries" - and you do not give a fuck about the company as a whole.

blaser-waffle 7y ago
> I witnessed an outsourcing process first hand, where Cognizant was supposed to come in a handle X, Y and Z tasks (pretty much all IT services) in a large energy company. By the time it became clear, that they were not able to deliver on their promises at anything that resembles an acceptable level, most people with actual skills were no longer around (FTEs and contractors). This is happening to my group right now...
- klausjensen 7y ago
  Start looking for a new job and leave.

robjan 7y ago

These days aren't we all trying to move towards more agile working practices? The problem is that fixed cost is pretty much at odds with this. I've worked on projects where we came to a compromise and had a fixed cost per story point, and the in house PO had to agree with estimations, but the vendor quickly started taking liberties and massively overestimating everything. When we called them out, they started compromising on quality instead leading us to code review everything. The overhead ended up being so large that we might as well have in-housed the project.

lmilcin 7y ago
Actually, I think fixed cost projects are better. With fixed cost projects you negotiate price for the expected outcome and it is much easier to show if the success criteria were not met. With time and materials projects it is almost impossible to get good results from the vendor. The vendor meets his goals when they deliver the team and they can't be held responsible for results, typically. If you are not happy with the people they delivered you can of course protest but then you just get different people and the people you protested will find place in another project and it does not matter much to the vendor.
- robjan 7y ago
  Fixed cost works on relatively simple, low risk, low innovation projects but not so much when there are lots of unknowns and emerging requirements. An example of low risk would be building a marketing website and high risk would be creating a new system from scratch to replace poorly defined business processes.
  - lmilcin 7y ago
    You don't really want to outsource innovative projects. You want to keep your best staff with you and have it work on most important projects and outsource the least important but highest volume of work.