Ask Slashdot: Is Outsourcing Development a Good Idea? 403
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?"
Re:Answer: (Score:2, Informative)
I think anyone who's ever tried it lives to regret outsourcing. Programming is not "monkey work".
Don't do it (Score:4, Informative)
A couple of ways of looking at it... (Score:5, Informative)
First off, if your company was in business to make wrenches, would it be smart to pay someone else to make wrenches and just sell them? Or, would it make more sense to be making wrenches better than other people and sell those? See, one way you are a sales company that isn't making anything and the other is you are actually making something. Same goes for software, trust me.
For a software company you might have some old products that could be pushed off onto some other folks for maintenance. Or, you could consider outsourcing accounting and bookkeeping. But outsourcing the core product(s) that establish your identity for the future is ... well, madness.
The basic problem is the folks you outsource to are looking for a paycheck and have little interest in a product. You, on the other hand, count on a product as a way of surviving into the future. To tie yourself to some folks doing this with little supervision (and don't kid yourself, there won't be anywhere near enough) for the future isn't going to work out well. I have heard of this with a number of organizations and while they can get some cheap development done, it is generally something that simply needs to be redone on a crash basis when customers start noticing defects and quality problems. Also, you will find a lot of outsourced development done exactly to specs - and done in a virtually unmaintainable manner. It does exactly what was specified, no more and no less - but to add some new feature takes a huge amount of effort because there was zero flexibility written into the code.
Yes, having developers in house is more expensive, no doubt about that. For things that are not critical to the business at hand you can outsource and get reasonable results - it may have some problems and may not be as flexible as you would like but you can live with it. Core product functionality on the other hand you better have a lot better control over and instill quality and flexibility in the development team from the start. Can't do that remotely when the team changes every week - which is common for such arrangements.
Re:...turn off the lights? (Score:4, Informative)
I'm sorry to say, I agree with this AC.. Having dealt with outsourcing many times, I can tell you it's not worth the hassle. If you can sell the company to fools who believe that outsourcing will work just fine, do so - otherwise get out while you have what you have now.
Re:Just remember (Score:5, Informative)
Yes and No.
Labour is cheaper in other countries and this does not mean that they are worse workers or unqualified.
But it does mean that you will necessarily be working with people who care less about the finished product and who you have almost no oversight of.
They might be working two or more jobs at the same times, and even if you are paying them for 8-12 hour days they might only be working 4 for you.
There will likely be a communication barrier, my old boss used to spend 4+ hours a day trying to explain what he wanted our outsourced team to do the following day.
Also, being an entire world away they can hold your code hostage. You will probably want them to constantly unload their work to servers you have absoluter control over. Because the last thing you want is for your relationship with them to break down and for them to refuse to sent you their work thus far.
Horrible, Terrible, Awful idea (Score:2, Informative)
I've been through outsourcing at two companies, and it just doesn't work, especially for smaller groups. I could see it working if you have a large team, you have some repetitive, cookie-cutter development tasks, you've done this task a million times yourself, and you know exactly how to give the task to someone else. And you already have the tests to verify that the product actually does what it is supposed to do. And you have managers already managing that same work internally. This just isn't you.
I strongly agree with other posters here: If these arguments are not persuasive to your partner, you should find another job, and let him find the monkeys.
Re:Going Through The Same Thing (Score:5, Informative)
Consider yourself screwed. You are being set up.
Let's see. Over the last 3+ years, 7 apps. Then in the last few months, they asked for 7 more, and also to start renting out your systems. They don't want to use the in-house staff, instead they want to have you take the blame for not being able to do a job in 1-2 weeks compared to what I assume you in-house staff estimated at 1-2 months. The outsourcers are quoting even longer, at 2.5 months.
You can quit, you can wait until things fail and take the blame and consequences, or you can stand up to these idiots demanding that you find someone willing to promise to do the impossible for small bags of money.
Re:Just remember (Score:5, Informative)
When you outsource, the labor is working for someone else. They aren't your employees. They are employees of OtherCorp. The labor will do nothing that doesn't benefit OtherCorp. They don't care about you or your company or your product. They will not lift a finger except what is spelled out in your contract with OtherCorp.
They are not your employees.
Outsourced is Risky (Score:5, Informative)
On a professional note: I've been on a few teams where parts were outsourced, as we shook our heads in sadness at what got delivered. Now I lead the outsourced efforts, and things are much, much better.
On a personal note: I routinely use elance.com for small project help.
It's all in how you do it.
1. Do not go for the lowest bidder. Go with subject matter/platform experts.
2. Do not allow them to exercise any discretion. I mean do not leave any platform decisions to them. They will make decisions on what's best for THEM not YOU.
3. Thoroughly review their work in a regular basis to prevent surprises. Yes, this means MORE work for SOMEONE at your office. But you won't have to pay X people for multiple years, just a few months.
4. Don't outsource work that will take years bring them in house.
5. Don't expect it to be cheaper or faster. But you can expect that more work will be done. If you did tip #1 correctly, you'll get it don better than you an do. And that alone is worth it.
Re:monkey work? (Score:4, Informative)
I think outsourcing it is a terrible idea. He should just purchase a bunch of monkeys and have them work on it in-house. Lemurs, tamarins, and marmosets are only $1500-2500 [slate.com]
Re:Just remember (Score:5, Informative)
. We developed those relationships, those friendships, because they share the same passion for development that we do
You have no idea how rare that is.
In a place where programming is a ticket out of poverty, and the larger consulting firms literally snatch up tens of thousands of graduates who are in it solely for the money - graduates who do not have the aptitude to be good programmers - skilled, capable programmers are true diamonds in the rough.
The situation now in India is the same but a vastly higher quantity of incapable programmers is entering the workforce every year. The ratio of skilled to clueless is the same as anywhere - but with the higher quantities it's very rare to find the skilled.
This is no slight against Indian people -- we saw the same thing in the US but on a much lesser scale in the late 90s and early 00s That's when everyone thought it was a way to get rich - hop on board the dot-com bandwagon. The market was flooded with incapable wannabe programmers and it took years for them to wash out (some never did).
If this hasn't been your experience, count yourself very lucky.