Learn offshoring strategies, benefits, challenges, and best practices for software development success.
I just read a very interesting blog post on managing Indian teams, written by Dutch culture trainer Frank Garten. His article starts with a phrase that I indeed have heard many times:
“People from India always deliver late, and when a project is delayed, they will never tell you but rather say everything is fine”.
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We recently launched our new eBook about offshoring and nearshoring : How to Overcome Cultural differences when Managing Offshore or Nearshore teams
In the world of offshoring and global collaboration, there is no topic that is more widely discussed that cultural differences. Or maybe there is one: communication. People with experience in managing remote teams often cite communication as their biggest challenge. But what is communication? And if communication is the problem, where do we start the solution? In most cases, one of the best starting point is ‘culture’ (the others being people and process, which we describe in our other books).
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Many methods for product quality improvement start by investigating the problems, and then working their way back to the point where the problem started. For instance audits and Root Cause Analysis work this way. But what if you could prevent problems from happening, by building an understanding what drives quality, thus enabling to take action before problems actually occur?
The series on “What Drives Quality” describes both technical activities and supporting quality activities. Previous articles explored what Senior Management and Operational Management do to ensure that quality software products are delivered to customers. This article describes how Project Management drives quality.
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I speak to many people about offshoring and nearshoring. One of the central themes that come up is the move from ‘providing people’ to ‘R&D offshoring’ and ‘collaborative innovation’. Instead of providing people for specific customer projects, companies look at joint innovation.
Products that are developed for a customer, can be sold in the local market of the offshore provider. Software that is developed by the offshore provider for the local market or another customer in another country, can be sold in the country of the customer.
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The past year we’ve been working on an online platform, Bridge Teams. I have done a lot of research on outsourcing/recruitment/hiring platforms and would like to get your feedback on the use of this type of services.
Bridge Teams enables companies to select (a team of) A-player developers. Users can find detailed profiles and can request an interview. Many programmers are screened by us and get the label ‘guaranteed’. Once the teams is selected, the team (all employees of a company) will work from our (or one of our partner’s) office. A process manager will be assigned to facilitate the communication between the team and the customer. We’ll manage and improve the team step by step (using a structured personal development process, team activities, training).
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