> From: Dave Rooney [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
> For quite a while now I have been saying to anyone who will listen (and
> quite a few that won't) precisely that offshoring is simply a "cheaper
> way to fail".
Except when it succeeds. I've been hearing about more success
stories than failures lately.
> Last March at a Toronto Product Management Association meeting,
> I spoke on a panel of 4 offshoring proponents and 4 opponents.
> Even the proponents from companies that provided offshore
> services said that a critical success factor was constant
> contact with their local client.
How did they do that? My impression is that offshore software
companies are actively exploring ways to maintain good
communication to support their distributed teams. Will it ever
be as good as direct contact? Probably not. Will it be good
enough to provide high ROI on development activities. It appears
it is in at least some contexts.
> ...
>
> Offshore outsourcing is, IMHO, a fad. It will still be here
> after the fad has passed, but it won't be the first option to
> reduce costs. ...
I was first exposed to offshoring in the mid 90's. I worked on a
project with teams on four continents. Overall, it didn't work out
well -- for the very reasons you describe. However, it seems to me
that people have learned a lot about what it takes to be successful
in a distributed development environment over the last 10 years. I
know it's possible because I have worked on several successful
distributed (but not offshore) teams. I don't believe this current
wave of offshore development is a fad.
> I firmly believe that agile development processes are getting closer to
> the "tipping point" that Mary Poppendieck described, and once they have
> been accepted into the mainstream and their benefits felt, offshoring
> will become a substantially smaller issue. This will still take some
> time, and people will still lose their jobs to offshoring in the
> meantime. However, I'm optimistic that it's a short-term phenomenon.
Offshore companies are experimenting with agile approaches
as well. It probably won't be classical XP because of the requirement
of an onsite customer, but many "XP" teams are not pure XP anyway.
Do a Google search for "agile offshore" and you'll find many
references. For example Valtech (a Galaxy-class XP Universe sponsor)
has an agile offshore approach they call DuoShore. ThoughtWorks has
also been working with agile offshore teams and have documented their
challenges and the solutions being developed to address those
challenges. According to some of the articles they've written
about their experience, agile offshore is "very doable and very
worthwhile".
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