Two more issues not dealt with here...
* The time difference between the sub-continent and the US/Europe making
project
management a bit of a nightmare. Between the US and India, a problem
reported during daylight
EST may not be picked up until maybe 8-12 hours later unless 24hr shifts
are being done.
* The problem of the interpretation of the English Language - sometimes, it
takes a native
English speaker to really understand the nuances of what it wanted. Same
goes for Gujarati,
Bengali, Hindi, Vlaamse, Dansk... any language.
FWIW.
Mark W.
> -----Original Message-----
> From: HP-3000 Systems Discussion [mailto:[log in to unmask]]On
> Behalf Of [log in to unmask]
> Sent: 31 January 2002 23:26
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: [HP3000-L] Employment
>
>
> Yourdon, in "The Death and Decline of the American Programmer",
> the textbook
> whose success marked his descent, listed offshore development as one of
> those factors in the decline of the American programmer. Some work can be
> successfully sent offshore, but there are issues to consider. I should
> provide the disclaimer that CGI acquired IMR Global last August.
> CGI already
> located work in Canada, and IMR Global has been developing in
> India for some
> time. However, my comments are my own, and should in no way be taken to
> reflect any company's position.
>
> The one word in Raghu. Rao's post the compelled me to reply was "quality",
> from "if they can get the work done in shorter time with better
> quality". I
> think that you can actually subtract that word from the equation, and the
> equation still holds: What will it cost, and when can I have it? Too many
> managers would not know quality if they could see it. Worse, I doubt we
> could even begin to agree on what quality means in this context.
>
> Will an offshore shop adhere to your shop's standards? Can you define your
> shop's standards? What about the resulting documentation, in the form of
> separate documents, and in the form of comments within the code? Will an
> offshore company understand the practices of your industry? Before CGI
> bought this office, we were ISI Systems, Inc., and specialized in the
> peculiarities of Massachusetts insurance regulations. Some of our
> employees
> have been associated with the state regulatory agencies, and bring a
> distinctive perspective to those lines of business. Can you
> provide correct
> and complete specifications for the work to be done by the
> offshore company?
> Will management know the difference before it is too late?
>
> Someone recently posted an article on the psychology of unexpected failure
> or something like that, where people failed because they lacked the
> knowledge to succeed, but lacking that knowledge, they did not know that
> they were doomed to failure. If the decision makers cannot distinguish
> between what makes for success and its absence, then success is a random
> occurrence, and they may as well consult the planets and constellations as
> their project plans and status reports.
>
> OTOH, Y2K is exactly the sort of thing that can be outsourced: labor and
> analysis intensive tasks that are well-defined and readily
> understood, where
> any costs saved achieve an economy of scale. One real benefit of offshore
> development is that work that is too massive to be undertaken at the
> prevailing cost per line of code becomes feasible, when that cost can be
> slashed. Some pervasive artifact of times long past can be cleaned out of
> the code, instead of being tolerated, because it becomes affordable to do
> so.
>
> The trick is knowing the difference, and making sure that those difference
> are understood and respected. These waters are fraught with perils,
> especially for those most inclined toward them.
>
> Greg Stigers
> http://www.cgiusa.com
>
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