Offshore Development = Buyer Beware

One of my mentors teaches classes in requirements gathering for development projects as well as project risk management for one of the leading training facilities in the country. Each week he meets technology executives and members of their staff who must accomplish very specific business driven technology initiatives. When these individuals come into a classroom environment to talk shop, it serves as an informal panel discussion. Without fail, when the topic of offshore development comes up, so do the groans and stories of painful experiences.

Outsourcing development projects can be a very costly and risky proposition if it's not handled properly. The challenges you will face include time zone differences, cultural differences and most importantly; communication disconnects where what you think the person understood you specify is not exactly what they heard. The feedback I have heard thus far is that the quality of work is often substandard, but it will hold up to service level agreement specifications. The analogy presented to me was that you can sometimes use a flat head screwdriver to screw in a Phillips head screw, but it's not the best way to get the job done. The job gets done, but the screw might be slightly damaged, or perhaps it's just not tight enough and will become a problem later. Most importantly, many large companies that attempted off shoring development efforts, had to throw away the work and start over from scratch here in the States. For whatever reason, there has been a cultural shift where buyers are attempting to obtain more for less without a regard for quality. If this trend does not stop and begin focusing once again upon quality and doing the job right the first time, I fear many companies will suffer financial losses as well as morale problems and customer retention. Ultimately, the customers you want will expect a quality product that is competitively priced.