Top 10 Mistakes dealing with Offshore - Project Level

Once you engage a offshore vendor and start working with them. You usually have some surprises - good and bad.

The idea of the this article is to help project managers deal with offshore vendors better. The top 10 mistakes that have attributed to the failure of projects at offshore are

Mistake 1:

I tell you what to do, when to do, how to do it - you just do it -This is a sure way to make your offshore experience hell.

Suggestion:

1. Let the offshore vendor be bothered about how, you help define the how and when part and sign off with them on a deliverable. Do not be bothered about who does it let them handle it.

Mistake 2:

Having your team do the onsite co-ordination - all I can say is all the very best. This is one of mantra to create frustration.

Suggestion:

Always identify one single person at Onsite from the vendor's team to be the onsite co-ordinates. Let he be the STC (Single Throat to Choke). Similarly let the onsite co-ordinator identify the offshore sing point of contact. They need to work in tandem for the success of your project.

Mistake 3:

Not having a single point of contact (SPOC) from your team for the vendor's onsite co-ordinator - causes enough confusion to wreck the project.

Suggestion:

Identify a single point of contact from your side for the offshore vendor's onsite co-ordinator. Check to see what kind of relationship they enjoy. The better the relationship the better the deliverables.

Mistake 4:

Client picks each and every team member by interviewing candidates - this is a waste of your effort. You are not recruiting the person so why interview? Let the offshore vendor deal with the selection process.

Suggestion:

Screen the first person that gets on to your project, make him the lead STC - (Single Throat to Choke) and let him pick his team. That way he becomes responsible and you do not have to worry about who else is working in the background.

Mistake 5:

Do not Out Task - Out Source and procure the project deliverables like a commodity. Most of the new managers dealing with offshore spend a lot of time putting together processes that help creating SOPs and identification of tasks that can be done at offshore. Some even believe that it is a way to keep their own jobs.

Suggestion:

Though most of the managers are comfortable having full control by out-tasking, the value of an offshore vendor is minimized in this case and the time you need to spend on monitoring increases hence contributing to the overall cost. The best way is again to have your onsite STC do this for you.

Mistake 6:

Not knowing the organization structure of the vendor. Clear escalation path not known if there is a problem.

Suggestion:

Spend some time to understand the vendor's escalation path and organization structure. The best thing to do is get the onsite co-ordinator in a room during the kick-off and ask him to draw the org chart. Someone who you feel is the person who can solve a esaclation may not be the one!!

Mistake 7:

Not communitating enough to the offshore team, usually every project has a mailing list make sure that the list also includes the offshore team. The more they feel involved they more committed they are to making it happen for you.

Suggestion:

Have a weekly touch base call, talk something other than business. Learn a bit about cricket, the way you talk about weather or games here, people like to be asked how they feel working for your project, talk about cricket, new shopping malls in India, traffic etc.. Stop by each of your onsite team members to touch base. You will get a feeler of how the project is going.

Mistake 8:

Find the odd ball in your team and shield the offshore/onsite team from them. There is always resistance within your team to offshore outsourcing. Be sensitive to that and identify the pockets in your team that can be problem points.

Suggestion:

Make sure you address your team on the objectives behind offshore outsourcing and get them onboard. Make it clear to your team that it is for the overall good and address any apprehensions. Also identify the odd ball in your team and pay special attention to talking to them. Talk to the offshore and onsite leads and make them aware that you know of the resistance, this way you open a communication channel for offshore vendor team to come to you with issues before they become one.

Mistake 9:

Seating them separately - usually teams do not prefer to sit together. The client will have the offshore vendor team sit at a different set of cube and their own team in a different one.

Suggestion:

Small things like this can build a china wall of communication between your and offshore vendor teams. Take time to organize a few team lunches etc to help team building. Have your teams exchange introduction notes when they start on the project, that way they know the people as more than just business collegues.

Mistake 10:

Deadlines - do not assume that dates are met everytime.

Suggestion:

If you are assuming based on the status reports that things are going as per plan, stop - time to do a reality check. It is important for you (Project Manager) to sometimes just take the phone and call the offshore lead to check how things are. Also as I had earlier mentioned - stop by individual's cubes and check on status - this might give you some information that will avoid surprises. Buy more time from your business and put a tighter timeline on offshore - that way you are sure to meet your internal deadline.

The idea of this guide is to help project managers be more successful using offshore. If you have additional information to share or comments please do post the same. Enjoy working!!! multi cultural, multi national and global delivery models are the realities of the future.

Susheel K Ladwa (susheel.ladwa@gmail.com)