[thelist] Outsourcing
Aaron Wormus
aaron at wormus.com
Mon Jan 30 10:35:00 CST 2006
As a freelance programmer and then a freelance project
manager/programmer, I have both good and bad experiences with outsourcing.
Firstly, there is NOTHING like being able to sit down with your
programmer or project managers and go over the projects and work out the
details of what is happening. You will pay more for in-house
programmers, but the productivity you get in return is well worth it.
Outsourcing works well when you need to avail yourself of a larger
development team. This is when the production costs really make it worth
it. In these cases, make sure that you or your project manager are in
VERY close touch with the programmers. In many cases they will say "give
us your spec and we'll deliver in 6 weeks" this will NOT work. You want
to sit down with the project manager, go over the details, create your
goals, work out some clear project iterations so that you will be able
to have a firm grasp of exactly where the project is at any given time.
I have had projects completed, which have come back to me and have been
a complete disaster, either buggy programming or over-engineered
unworkable code. Then I have had projects which have run smoothly and
been very efficient and saved a lot of money.
There are good shops out there, but working on a large project with
outsourcing is certainly not something for the faint of heart.
Aaron
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