Outsourcing Issues Discussed during Roundtable at SD Expo – Best Practices in Boston
I moderated a roundtable discussion at SD Expo – Best Practices in Boston on Thursday. This is a major professional software development conference in the U.S. with session tracks including:
- C++
- Design & Architecture
- People, Projects & Teams
- Process & Methods
- Requirements & Analysis
- Testing & Quality
These sessions covered mostly the technical side of software development and the roundtable discussion (in the People, Projects & Teams track) was the only one that dealt with offshore outsourcing.
Most sessions at the conference were lecture format and covered topics of the software development process, aimed mainly at attendees developing software in IT departments and software product companies.
In contrast, the roundtable format was an open discussion between the all the attendees. All I had to do was get the ball rolling by introducing what I consider the five areas of mastery required for successful global outsourcing of software development. There were about 40 attendees.
We did not discuss the technical details of software technology and process. After all, software is developed pretty much the same no matter where ever you happen to be on the planet.
Or is it?
The attendees brought up the problems, issues and challenges of offshore outsourcing. Some wanted to know what to watch out for if they start offshoring. Others were looking for solutions to problems they have encountered. Problems like these:
- Too much project management overhead outsourcing to India – the vendor had a layer project managers managing other project managers!
- Attrition too high in a team of over 200 engineers in India
- Senior programmers are really junior – 3 years of experience is considered senior in India.
- Friends & family subsidiary not getting good results – want them to be more agile
One attendee wanted a Senior Java engineer but was given candidates with no EJB or database experience.Another had a Friends & Family subsidiary created when an existing employee decided he wanted to go back to India. Rather than loose the employee, the employee goes back and hires a small team. The company keeps the employee and gains an offshore operation at with programmers at a lower cost.
But problems can emerge when it becomes difficult to attract engineers to work for such a small operation in a country like India where good engineers want to work for a larger company. The original employee may be a good programmer but not an experience manager. The company is left with an offshore operation with inexpensive programmers but not delivering the software needed.
Another attendee had a Friends & Family subsidiary in Bulgaria that worked well with 2 engineers doing QA of their software developed in the U.S.
The bottom line of the discussion was that many companies are already offshoring their software development because of the cost savings. Some felt that the cost savings are overstated because of the problems and issues that are encountered.
Were you at the roundtable? Enter your own comments if you were there or if you have encountered similar results with your offshore outsourcing of software development.

















