Outsourcing Fudamental

Surely somebody else has looked at outsourcing from this angle....


Terry

Hi Tspringer,

If I may put my 2 cents in, this is actually doable but then expect some difficulties at first and some problems along the way. I know you know that these things are inevitable.

I am not sure when you say you are not a techie, but I hope you have tried buying a domain and selecting your webhosting. Then if you want someone to set up a website for you, be sure to provide these things and give specific clear instructions everything you want to have for your site.

You should of course look for someone who is very honest because he/she might take advantage on you considering the fact that you are not a techie. He/she might send you a report about technical problems just to make some excuses.

For me, I would prefer that my employer is a techie and has already greater experience so that I will just follow his/her lead. Likewise, if I will be running into some issues, I could just inform my employer about them and expect some great thoughts and solutions from him/her.

More power to you!

Cheers,
MagicLouie

Well, I AM writing a book on this. I WAS going to take my time, but I just came up with several new chapters, because of some INCREDIBLE incompetence. You would be SHOCKED at the millions of dollars thrown down the toilet for NOTHING!

Basically, for most here, there are only TWO problems! That is IT, just TWO!!!!!!

1. LAY IT OUT PROPERLY!!!!!!!!! I will cover that in my book. Failure to lay things out properly has cost the contract I am on now EASILY MILLIONS of USD!!!!!! NO, I am NOT exaggerating! Lay it out RIGHT, and it may take a good person MINUTES to do. Lay it out WRONG, and it may take decades. OK, minutes is not TOO likely, but it HAS happened before. Decades is possible, and has happened before. YEARS happens ALL THE TIME!

2. PEOPLE LIE! TEST THEM!!!!!!!!! Unfortunately, you have to have someone you KNOW that is competent do the technical interview. Certifications are RARELY any good, and "formal education" is near WORTHLESS! If you can't do a technical interview, your ONLY hope is a portfolio, or past references.

OK, so NOW you know why you have such a hard time finding such a book! BTW you have NOT read a ton about outsourcing! How do I know? I have read a lot, and there is VERY VERY VERY VERY little about laying out a project. You're lucky if they even MENTION "standards", "lessons learned", "best practices". I was on one project, and they told me I would get the files! OK..... I asked for a signal file, so I would know it was done. They said "NO!"! THEN, they said **I** would have to download them! I downloaded things via FTP. Months later, they said I would have to use RCP. I DID! I was the ONLY one apparently in the WHOLE company that was able to set it up! When I told them how to set it up, they hadn't a CLUE, and refused to believe me. MONTHS later, after the project was done and running in production, I found a "Standards" document that NOT ONLY said transfers were to be done via RCP, but explained it just the way I did. It was written by people at and for that company YEARS before I arrived! If they had given that document to me, it could have saved MONTHS! SERIOUSLY, it cost me a week or two, and others kept having the same problems, and I kept having to explain it. They had LONG meetings about it!

BTW standards includes this like O/S, databases, transfer methods, naming standards, applications, languages, etc.... SERIOUSLY, one little standards document can save a LOT of time. And IT generally says NOTHING about the PROJECT! A standards document simply sets standards and basic expectations. In the ABOVE case, a standards document might have setup a signal file, and RCP, which avoids meetings and testing something you should KNOW won't be accepted.

Steve

I would say to try to learn it yourself because it gives you a feeling of self worth that you could learn something and do it.

But if you do want an outsourcer, I highly suggest getting one from the US just because they are much higher quality.