Return to Archive Runtime - The Software Outsourcing Newsletter for Executives and Investors from Accelerance and Steve Mezak In this issue: How to instill a shared vision of success with both your employees and offshore engineering team. Is Your Outsourcing Vendor Compliant or Committed? How do some companies motivate their employees and partners to achieve greatness while other companies motivate their people only to produce the minimum requirements? The achievers are all committed to a "shared vision". You can articulate your company vision, but it only becomes a shared vision when employees and partners commit to achieving it. Commitment must be a personal decision, it cannot be imposed. If your vision doesn’t invite commitment then it will only inspire compliance. But a limited vision can be okay in some cases. Your vision may be to achieve a goal at the lowest possible cost. You don’t care if your outsourcing vendor is emotionally committed to your success. You want your vendor to be compliant with your detailed requirements. You just want them to deliver working software to you on-time. And on the cheap. Fixed-price contracts are a good way to “inspire” compliance. But if you are not sure exactly what your software should do, then you need your employees and outsourcing vendor to innovate and make a personal commitment to create great software. You truly need to inspire them with a shared vision. For example, I have recent client with a clear vision of how to continue their dominance of their niche market. The VP and his small team were both expert at the software technology they were using. Together they shared the vision of creating a superior technical product. Then about six months ago the vision changed. The software they created was good, but too many projects were left undone. The CEO and VP looked to offshore outsourcing as a way to deliver additional features and products. They had a good handle on what their software should do. Now they just needed to find that team quickly. The best way to jumpstart your offshore outsourcing in this situation is with the Accelerance Outsourcing Jumpstart services. Choose your vendor by world region or technology. The short list of pre-qualified vendors and the included advice is all you need to start your outsourcing quickly and safely. Guaranteed. For this company, Accelerance helped the VP of Engineering select an excellent offshore partner with the Outsourcing Jumpstart – Custom service. They were excited to find such a good vendor so quickly. But their excitement started to wane when their use of the offshore team was less productive than expected. Then one day the VP was shocked to hear his project manager tell the offshore team that they needed to have QA overlap with the U.S. workday afternoon. Afternoon in the U.S. is the middle of the night for the Indian vendor they selected. It was impossible for them to comply let alone commit! What was going on? It seems the U.S. employees had not yet bought into the new vision. They were still tuned into the old vision of achieving technical excellence themselves. They gave only grudging compliance to making effective use of the offshore engineers. The secret to moving employees from grudging compliance with outsourcing to wholehearted commitment is to integrate both teams to achieve a common goal – a shared vision. You must avoid any us-versus-them attitudes. Making this organizational change can be a challenge if you are overwhelmed by other pressing software development deadlines. This client solved the problem by upgrading to the Accelerance Prime Contractor service to manage their outsourcing more effectively. The Accelerance Prime Contractor service helps companies communicate the proper shared vision to both their U.S. and offshore teams. The Prime Contractor service is also a popular choice with Accelerance clients that have no internal technical team. If you understand the customer problem your software solves but need help specifying your software for outsourcing, then the Prime Contractor service gives you exactly what you need. As your prime contractor, Accelerance takes complete responsibility for your software development with a mutually selected Accelerance offshore partner. See http://www.accelerance.com/outsourcing-js-prime.htm for more details. *** The Runtime Bottom Line: How can you get your employees and partners all pulling in the same direction? Make sure they all share the vision of delivering quality software by using excellent offshore engineers. The cost savings and rapid delivery of your software can mean the difference between success and failure of your entire company. Until next time, Steve Mezak Accelerance, Inc. Risk-Free Outsourcing http://www.Accelerance.com 213 Garcia Avenue Half Moon Bay, CA 94019 1-650-712-8990 Contact me by email (c) 2006 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."