The only way it can work is if the person managing the source of work knows exactly what they're looking for. If the project manager can read and recognize what

The only way it can work is if the person managing the source of work knows exactly what they're looking for. If the project manager can read and recognize what a well coded project looks like, then the model can work. But often the only thing that matters (especially to the type who would immediately want to outsource) is the end result. A friend of mine tried outsourcing an e-commerce site to somewhere in India from freelance.com or one of those sites to save a little time and money for a project he said he could do for someone. He had absolutely no programming experience and didn't believe my "you get what you pay for" type attitude. A week or two and a few hundred dollars later he was all excited about how he was able to "manage" the developer and get everything done. Within a week the site was offline, completely destroyed by a script hacker exploiting some weakness in an out of date version of osCommerce. I think he just had to learn that lesson for himself though.