Return to Archive Runtime - The Software Outsourcing Newsletter for Executives and Investors from Accelerance and Steve Mezak Engineered For Outsourcing Using a core technical team of your employees is recommended for managing your outsourced software development. The structure and size of your core technical team (CTT) varies depending on your situation. Initially your CTT may be very technical or it may have stronger product marketing and business skills. You must adjust the composition of your CTT to get optimum results. Sometimes a software company is dominated by a very technical management team. The central innovation of the company's products is technical in nature. Because such a technical management team takes great pride in their work, it can be difficult for them to "share" technical responsibility with an outsourced team. The problem is more serious when your technical team has limited experience creating software products. Your team may be terrific at technical innovation but lousy at a product development process. Technical pride can obscure your recognition of this limitation. In this situation, a formula for outsourcing that works well is to outsource your product modules that use more standard technologies. For example, a software company I know has a very sophisticated database security product. Their database algorithms and procedures are closely guarded and not appropriate for outsourced development. However, their product also includes a web application to manage and configure the database security product. The web application is perfect for outsourcing if specified well and if development is managed properly. On the other extreme is a software company whose innovation is a unique application of fairly standard technologies rather than the technology itself. In this case the management team is likely to be dominated by business and marketing experts. Most of the software product development can be outsourced if managed properly. The CTT in this case must be expert in coordinating the activities of internal programmers (if any) and one or more outsourced teams. Tremendous leverage can be gained by forming a tight loop between engineers and business people. For example, one software company using basic web application technology has engineering employees but is using an outsourced QA team. Another outsourced team will be brought in to develop a second version of their product for a new market. They can leverage multiple outsourced teams and reduce risk by not putting all their outsourced eggs in one basket. Another software company is architecting their product into three technically distinct modules. Each can be outsourced to different teams that specialize in each technology. What is left internally is the coordination of these outsourced teams by a CTT comprised of experienced product and engineering managers. It is a mistake to hire very technical, hands-on programmers to manage software development in this situation. That doesn't mean your CTT members do not have to be technical. It is important that they maintain the respect of the outsourced teams, are able to evaluate the quality of their work, and offer direction when technical issues arise. For example, it is important for the CTT to review source code for good structure, organization and compliance with coding standards. In summary, if you are starting with a CTT that is comprised mostly of hands-on engineers, some engineers will need to make a transition to being product managers. If your CTT is mostly business-oriented, they need to make a transition to being technical managers that are effective in handling the details of outsourced software development. In either case it is important to grant authority to your CTT for approving the work done by your outsourced teams. They require authority to have the appropriate impact in managing outsourcing. Awkward situations in managing outsourced development can arise when insufficient authority is granted to the CTT. Sometimes this is caused by exotic financial terms of the outsourcing relationship negotiated by someone else. In one case a CEO negotiated complex terms with a US outsourcing vendor that included software licenses, small progress payments, royalties and stock. This deal was good for the CEO's company because it required little outlay of cash. However, small cash progress payment offered little incentive for the outsourced team to meet schedule and manpower commitments. Many delays were encountered and the software quality suffered. The CTT did not know the exact details of the compensation plan and it had little influence over the performance of the outsourcing vendor. Many people will tell you there is a fundamental choice available when hiring creative talent. It is stated this way: Speed, Quality and Price - Pick Any Two. The company in the last example sacrificed speed and some quality to get a good price. When you use a good CTT to manage your outsourcing you can get all three Vision Resources Are you wondering how you will select an expert offshore team to develop your software? Use the Accelerance Vision Resources(sm) outsourced vendor selection service and cut the time of your vendor selection process by as much as 90%. Vision Resources leverages members of the Accelerance's 17 teams in 14 countries around the world. Click here to learn more about Vision Resources Accelerance, Inc. delivers impartial & expert strategies and services for risk-free outsourcing of your software development. Visit our web site at www.Accelerance.com   Until next time, Steve Mezak Accelerance, Inc. Risk-Free Outsourcing www.Accelerance.com 213 Garcia Avenue Half Moon Bay, CA 94019 1-650-712-8990 Contact me by email (c) 2005 Accelerance, Inc. All rights reserved. You are free to use material from the "Runtime" eZine in whole or in part, as long as you include complete attribution, including live web site link. Please also notify me where the material will appear. The attribution should read: "By Steve Mezak, CEO of Accelerance, Inc. Please visit the Accelerance web site at http://www.Accelerance.com for more information and resources on outsourcing and creating great software products."