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Ask Slashdot: Is Outsourcing Development a Good Idea?
New submitter penmanglewood writes "I am a developer at a small IT company, and we primarily make software and games for the education market. I used to work with a team of developers, but for reasons outside the scope of this question, my boss and I are the only ones left. My boss says that our new strategy is to use outsourced developers to do the 'monkey work' for us. To me, this sounds like a bad idea. Do we give the developers access to our internal libraries? How will they be able to work on parts of our product without having access to our repository. I could think of a hundred more objections, but maybe I'm looking at it the wrong way. Is there a smart way to outsource development, or is it just a bad idea?"
You get what you pay for. There's a reason those outsourced programmers are so cheap. They don't care about you, or your project, and they don't have to maintain it when it breaks.
...as if your the last two left, there isn't a company left - it's time to pull the plug. If you can't perform the service / provide the product you were created for within the organization, or even get it started - then you are just conservators of a bunch of assets, waiting for the right time to call it quits; not a software development firm.
No.
Thank you. Next question?
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
You need to balance your workloads with the project timeline. If the two of you can do it on time and within your budget, then you should try to do it yourself. If not, you'll need to spend quite a bit of time managing the individual(s) or company that you outsource your project to.
If your internal libraries are proprietary, you'll need to be smart. Don't give away the source code - just the compiled libraries. If you need to issue temporary licenses for the libraries to run (if your code requires licensing), make sure they are for 'dev versions' so they can't be used for release versions.
There are lots of reasons to keep development in house, but if you can't do it all yourself you nee to pick your developers well. Make sure you get references and that you check all of them. Make sure they provide references for several years back so you can see if they tend to repeat the same mistakes.
Try IGDA, the Independent Game Developers Association, and find a team with a track record of a game roughly similar to, or better than, the one you want. Give them participation in the deal, so they get paid a basic price plus some fraction of sales. This will encourage them to make it good, not do a half-assed job.
Rent-a-Coder and Freelance will not help. I've never been able to get good work from there for anything above the trivial level. (I once wanted screen scrapers written for state corporation registries. I'd written one for one state, and wanted someone to write the other 49, each state being different. No joy.)
"Monkey work" looks exactly as if monkeys have worked on it.
If you want a high quality product, the world is pretty flat as far as cost.
If you are a developer, and your boss thinks programming is "monkey work", I'd be looking for a different job, right now.
I know that's not the question you asked, but that's the answer I have.
By all means, hire strangers who get paid in advance and have no personal stake in the outcome.
Who fights harder, people whose country is being invaded, or the mercenaries doing the invading?
Your new job is to manage outsourced developers doing 'monkey work'. They will do it badly and you will have to pick up the pieces. There is a huge shortage of strong developer talent out there. Therefore you should have little trouble finding a new job that is a better alignment with your passions. If it were me, I'd be looking to leave the company you are at now.
The other thing is that you can't just look at outsourcing as being the same as you having programmers, but in a different building. You aren't going to be walking by their desk every couple of hours, and see what they're doing. Managers are often used to being able to do this. As a result, many companies that aren't used to outsourcing have weak requirements specification processes. They just notice when what's being made isn't what they want, and fix it early. With outsourcing, you have to put more effort in on the front-end requirements, or you'll get something that isn't what you want, even with a competent outsourcing outfit.
You have to trade this off against the flexibility that an outsource outfit gives you. You don't have to spend time and resources recruiting. You don't have to provide office space. You don't have to worry about what to do with the people if your budget or needs dimish.
I'll come from the other angle. I'm a consultant developer full-time. In order to be successful, don't keep the guys at arm's-length. Yes, they will need access to core libraries, and anything else that will make their project successful. You will need to put in place adequate agreements to protect your IP, however. Set milestones for them to reach, and have regular (but not overwhelming, once a week should do) contact with the developer to discuss their progress. Verify they will be using technologies that you are comfortable with. The consultant knows better their own work-pace than you do. Allow them some leeway to set their own development schedule, making sure that it fits in with your ultimate deadline. Often, you will not be their only client. It's tough as a consultant to make everyone feel special. I often have 3-5 projects I'm juggling at a time. Of course, you will need to get the warm and fuzzies that they are devoting adequate time to your project, but try to get a feel for their existing workload as well before moving forward with them. Just my two cents.
I'm curious, if you're outsourcing development what is it that the business actually does?
I mean fundamentally. What is it your company offers your market? What value does it add, if someone else is doing the work? Why wouldn't customers cut out you, the middleman? How does it control everything that matters - supply lines, production, IP, quality, direction, and so on?
An organisation is just that - an organisation. It doesn't fundamentally matter what's in-house and what's out, as long as it's organised i.e. controlled. However, it is dramatically more difficult when it's outsourced.
Consider say Apple. It outsources production but retains everything else internally. What it has outsourced can be very heavily controlled because it's all extremely highly specified and those specifications are of a nature well suited to contracts.
As an IT manager, we do something similar to this. We hire recent college graduates with basic skills we're looking for (Excel and basically programming exposure) and train them to do the work we need to have done.
Now, while this works for our business and our model, it does take time to bring people on board who are not accustomed to the language we use and bring them up to speed. Depending on the timeline of the projects on hand and the time availability of those who would be working to bring associate level programmers up to speed, it may not work in all instances.
I have a close-knit team comprised of experience professionals willing to train entry-level people to do the work both during crunch times and lulls. Both myself and my guys have the desire and availability to do this and we hope that it will continue to serve us well.
YMMV.
Then again, the non-idiots are less cheap and sometimes that can be a turn-off for decision makers who are more focused on the bottom line than on the quality of the work.
Exactly. There seems to be this myth around outsourcing that somehow there's a magic method by which an outsourcing company can provide you engineering or programming effort for less than what it would cost you to hire someone of equal quality, despite the fact that the outsource company has to provide facilities, licenses, computers etc for that person, and also make a profit. This just isn't going to happen. You go to outsource for business flexibility, or in order to gain access to expertise that you don't have internally, and don't want to pay to hire over the long term. If it seems too good to be true, it is.
You have no hope in hell of keeping a product going. You have no way of enforcing your deadlines. You're basically middle-men who may or may not be able to cajole your supplier into doing what you need when you need it.
The projects I've been on that have used outsourcing usually required a fair amount of management to get them to do well-defined tasks to spec, and deliver that on time and working as expected. What you're describing sounds like it simply can't work.
If what you do is primarily make software, and your boss calls that the "monkey work", then you're screwed. That's not really a strategy which is going to work, which means your small IT company will implode in a while
Seriously, what is left for you guys to do? Collect the money and laugh all the way to the bank? What value do you guys add at this point?
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
What developer would work for less?
The reason the last 3 were so bad, is because you don't want to pay market wages.
If you want to attract the right developers you will need to pay $70K+ and offer insurance and PTO and 401Ks. I don't see what is so hard to understand about this. If you cannot offer insurance and 401Ks you will have to pay more in wages to make up for that. Employees need to save money and have healthcare. Why should they suffer for you?
You have already seen that paying crap wages gets crap workers. Why continue to try to do that?
I used to work with a team of developers, but for reasons outside the scope of this question, my boss and I are the only ones left.
I suspect this actually gets right to the heart of your problem.
Just look at the other responses that basically say you boss has no respect for what you do, you should GTFO NOW.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff