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Offshore initiatives offer many benefits, particularly on the financial side, and also come with several risks.\u00a0 As with any major initiative, developing a plan to mitigate the risks is essential.\u00a0 A source of risk that is seldom considered, however, is the disruption to social connections that occurs when an operation is moved offshore or even when a new initiative is started in an offshore mode.<\/p>\n
Social connections are the interpersonal relationships and interactions that drive knowledge work, collaboration, and innovation.\u00a0 These connections can be modeled as networks of interconnected individuals and groups, and the relative strengths and shapes of these connections can be analyzed to predict the success of initiatives.\u00a0 This branch of organizational science is called social network analysis (SNA).\u00a0 SNA predicts that groups with high cohesion, i.e., groups with many connections among many members, are most effective at collaboration and knowledge work.\u00a0 By contrast, groups with high centrality have few connections among members and strong connections only among a few leaders.\u00a0 High centrality networks are not as effective for collaboration and knowledge work.<\/p>\n
OFFSHORE INITIATIEVEN BIEDEN VEEL VOORDELEN, VOORAL DE FINANCI\u00cbLE VARIANT, MAAR KUNNEN OOK RISICO\u2019S MET ZICH MEE BRENGEN. ZOALS BIJ ELKE GROTE ONDERNEMING IS HET BELANGRIJK EEN PLAN TE MAKEN OM DE RISICO\u2019S TE BEPERKEN. EEN RISICO WAAR MEN ZELDEN AAN DENKT IS DE GEVOLGEN VOOR SOCIALE CONTACTEN ALS EEN OPERATIE VERPLAATST WORDT NAAR EEN OFFSHORE LOCATIE OF ALS ER EEN NIEUW INITIATIEF GESTART WORDT OFFSHORE.<\/h3>\nOffshore initiatives offer many benefits, particularly on the financial side, and also come with several risks.\u00a0 As with any major initiative, developing a plan to mitigate the risks is essential.\u00a0 A source of risk that is seldom considered, however, is the disruption to social connections that occurs when an operation is moved offshore or even when a new initiative is started in an offshore mode.<\/p>\n
Social connections are the interpersonal relationships and interactions that drive knowledge work, collaboration, and innovation.\u00a0 These connections can be modeled as networks of interconnected individuals and groups, and the relative strengths and shapes of these connections can be analyzed to predict the success of initiatives.\u00a0 This branch of organizational science is called social network analysis (SNA).\u00a0 SNA predicts that groups with high cohesion, i.e., groups with many connections among many members, are most effective at collaboration and knowledge work.\u00a0 By contrast, groups with high centrality have few connections among members and strong connections only among a few leaders.\u00a0 High centrality networks are not as effective for collaboration and knowledge work.<\/p>\n
Offshore Initiativen bieten, besonders finanziell gesehen, viele Vorteile, bringen aber auch einige Risiken mit sich. So wie bei jeder gr\u00f6\u00dferen Unternehmung ist es essentiell einen Plan zur Verringerung dieser Risiken zu entwickeln. Eine Risikoquelle, die nur selten bedacht wird, ist jedoch eine St\u00f6rung der sozialen Verbindungen, die eintritt, wenn eine T\u00e4tigkeit ins Ausland ausgelagert wird oder wenn eine neue Initiative offshore gestartet wird.<\/div>\nSoziale Verbindungen sind zwischenmenschliche Beziehungen und Interaktionen, welche Wissensarbeit, die Zusammenarbeit und Innovationen vorantreiben. Diese Verbindungen k\u00f6nnen als Netzwerke von miteinander verbundenen Individuen und Gruppen dargestellt werden und die relative St\u00e4rke und die Formen dieser Verbindungen k\u00f6nnen analysiert werden, um den Erfolg von Initiativen vorauszusagen. Dieser Bereich der organisatorischen Wissenschaft nennt sich Social Network Analysis (SNA). SNA sagt voraus, dass Gruppen mit einem gro\u00dfen Zusammenhalt, d.h. Gruppen, in denen viele Verbindungen zwischen den einzelnen Mitgliedern bestehen am effektivsten hinsichtlich der Zusammenarbeit und Wissensarbeit sind. Im Gegensatz dazu haben Gruppen mit einer hohen Zentralit\u00e4t weniger Verbindungen zwischen den einzelnen Mitgliedern und habe nur zwischen einigen Anf\u00fchrern starke Verbindungen. Netwerke mit einer hohen Zentralit\u00e4t sind hinsichtlich der Zusammenarbeit und Wissensarbeit nicht so effektiv.
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Offshore operations that involve development projects or support operations are highly dependent on knowledge transfer and collaboration among group members.\u00a0 SNA suggests that it is desirable to have highly cohesive networks for undertaking these initiatives.\u00a0 In other words, there should be strong working relationships between many members of the group, including the offshore and onshore teams.<\/p>\n
In many offshoring initiatives, however, the opposite happens.\u00a0\u00a0 A development project, for example, is sourced to an offshore team in which most of the team members have no direct communication with the customer.\u00a0 The offshore team leader may have a good relationship with the onshore project manager or requirements leader, but the interactions between customers and developers that occur more organically when everyone is co-located are nearly non-existent or very weak in the offshoring scenario.<\/p>\n
Such a project is an example not of high cohesion but of high centrality, and knowledge transfer is difficult to achieve in this setting.\u00a0 Knowledge that is tacit, i.e., not formally documented but residing in people\u2019s experience, is difficult to transfer through a limited two-person connection (the onshore project manager and the offshore team leader).\u00a0 This is one factor in common complaints about offshore projects \u2013 that they require a tremendous amount of overhead to manage and produce very low quality.\u00a0 My experience is that offshore development teams are fully capable of producing high quality products, but that this knowledge transfer problem exacerbates the already difficult processes of gathering and communicating requirements and testing product releases against customer expectations.<\/p>\n
Fortunately, once this social network challenge is identified and understood, there are strategies that can be developed and implemented to mitigate it:<\/p>\n
1.Ensure that key members of the offshore team spend time with the onshore team in the early stages of the project. \u00a0This can take place in either location, and should ideally occur in both.<\/p>\n
2.Plan social time when the teams meet \u2013 meals, outings, games, and other team building activities.<\/p>\n
3.Have members of the offshore team interact with customers both when they visit onshore and on an ongoing basis via design reviews, requirements sessions, etc.<\/p>\n
4.Make sure that meetings between the onshore and offshore teams are setup to accommodate both teams\u2019 workdays if they work in different time zones. \u00a0It\u2019s stressful for one team to always attend meetings in the middle of their night!<\/p>\n
5.Use Skype and other video conferencing capabilities so that teams can continually put names with faces and voices and have richer personal interactions during meetings.<\/p>\n
6.Regardless of the formal management structures of the offshore and onshore teams, the project manager and other leaders should spend time talking with all the members of both teams.<\/p>\n
7.Encourage as much person-to-person conversation as possible between offshore and onshore individuals, and encourage these interactions to be informal and not always project related. \u00a0Simply put, encourage team members to get to know each other.<\/p>\n
Using these and other team building techniques builds cohesion among the team members and facilitates knowledge transfer and collaboration.\u00a0 The result will be higher quality, more repeatable success, and a more invigorating and enjoyable work environment for all.<\/p>\n