THE OFFSHORE OUTSOURCING CHALLENGE
Even
outsourcing within the U.S. exacerbates the problems associated with
non-collocation of teams. All of the problems associated with having
the teams separated even by a few miles become magnified. Just sending
projects to different areas of the U.S. creates communications problems
due to time differences between project team members. Additionally,
there can be problems created by work styles and dialects spoken in
different areas of the U.S.
With
world-wide outsourcing, teams dispersed over many wide-spread areas
affect collocation even more. Two major factors affected are:
- Significant
language and cultural differences
- Dramatic
time differences and lags, with teams dispersed over a large number of
time zones.
SIGNIFICANT LANGUAGE AND CULTURE
DIFFERENCES
PCommunication
is very critical to project execution. Language and cultural
interaction norms can seriously impact communication. There are a
number of classes and seminars, as well as individual coaches, that can
help someone to learn the cultural norms of different cultures and help
alleviate some of these problems. It is especially important to learn
about cultural norms regarding the giving and receiving of feedback.
The PM needs to learn what works and doesn't work.
A
good way to deal with cultural and language problems is to have a
trusted bilingual person on the team to keep the feedback clear and
flowing. Based on my personal experience, as well as that of others,
many people who normally speak a different language are able to read
and write more proficiently than they understand spoken English. This
is, of course, fraught with all of the problems inherent with written,
as opposed to verbal, communications (i.e. tone, quick feedback
missing, etc).
One
of the major factors that keeps a team functioning is the cohesion
brought about in personal meetings. This means a requirement for
in-person meetings attended by at least the PM and the remote teams.
Ideally the entire team should meet occasionally in one location. If
in-person team meetings aren't practical, at least some video
conference meetings should be held to improve this cohesion. My
personal experience is that video conferencing isn't all that more
helpful than phone conferences for communicating status and project
concerns. But periodic video meetings can make the other team members
seem more "real".
DRAMATIC AND MULTIPLE TIME DIFFERENCES
The
next largest problem with overseas outsourcing is the time differences
that make information flow slow down considerably. Teleconference or
video meetings must be timed to cover the times available to all
groups, but this can be a real challenge if there are several teams
spread out over numerous time zones.
A
twelve-hour time difference can be very challenging. One suggestion to
help in this area is to alternate meeting times either weekly or every
few days so they can overlap conveniently for the team. (ie change from
morning to evening, then evening to morning meetings). Another solution
is to select team locations in time zones that are more convenient,
such as an eight hour, or less, time difference.
Time
differences generate a greater need for web based communications, such
as chat rooms and email. Some PMs even set up special social chat rooms
to handle human interactions in a different way than normal project
communications. Normal communications are done via standard email.
CAREFUL TASK BREAKOUT
To
minimize the effects of communications requirements on schedule for new
product development projects, make sure that there is very careful
project task partitioning to reduce the amount of communications
required between remote team members. The good practice of creating a
number of focused and hard deliverable checkpoints can be added to
this. These can act as reality checks and allow for quick detection of
communications problems among team members.
LAST THOUGHTS
IThere
are a number of reports indicating that the real cost of outsoucing is
yet to be calculated. The actual financial cost and the time value of
that cost due to product introduction delays are hard to determine.
Furthermore, the human costs of the long days and nights required by
some project members are rarely taken into account. Due to these costs,
the jury still seems to be out as to the effectiveness and best
practises of offshore outsourcing, but it seems here to stay in some
form or another. Offshoring will remain with us until the labor cost
differentials are narrowed in the future.
Even
so, as with all NPD projects, almost all of the standard project
management practices are required to keep fast-paced projects moving
towards completion. Offshoring creates a need for greater emphasis on
some of them.
THE NEXT NEWSLETTER
In
the next issue, I will discuss some of the benefits and tradeoffs in
using Web based tools for project management.
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