Software development outsourcing is a powerful instrument to save you time and money when you know what you need. Its a too frequent practice when companies decide to outsource without knowing the functionality of the software to be, and this is the most repeated reason for outsourcing failure. Don't you expect that you will be offered a menu of available items for your software just to choose from – this will hardly happen. Software outsourcing can be compared to a visit to restaurant with a food connoisseur: he will give the smallest details of what he wants to receive. And if the result does not comply with requirements, it will definitely be sent back to get "fixed"
Its not a rare phenomenon when programming languages and technologies are picked according to geographical position. .NET from China or Indian Java or some Russian C++. Not many companies can offer the whole set of exact items you might like to order from outsourced team.
Bring your own list of requirements when starting to work with an outsourcing team. You'd better provide a detailed and specific description of features you would like to have. Without these specific and clear requirements your outsourced software development efforts is a losing battle.The software with poor specifications may require the involvement of specific or so called subject matter consultants proficient in a particular subject: business processes, inventory management, etc. They will generate ideas on features to be included and encoded to your software.
In some particular cases there is an opportunity to get bogged down in the details. But a good in-house manager does not yet mean that he will be able to handle the offshore development team in remote location. It may be a pleasant surprise but such situations have been foreseen and lots of companies act as a virtual CTO, responsible for the design, and development of the client's software. The situations when customer asks to develop the product and only then he will tell if he likes that work due to low costs of outsourcing and rework and multiple design iterations are affordable. But the contract type must be Time and Materials. Otherwise the price can't be determined since the end product is not defined. Lack of technical specifications must not stop you from outsourcing, since you can outsource the creation of a specification that will define your software for a fixed price. Usually the work on software design specification requires 50 per cent prepayment to protect the outsourcing company from not getting paid upon specification delivery.
No fear, its a commonly used practice: both parties seek to protect themselves and minimize their risks on the one side by selecting a reputed outsourcing team and on the other side by getting partial prepayment before project inception.
Here are some deliverables that should be produced during the design phase:- Marketing Requirements
- Functional Specification
- Milestones Schedule
- Beta release
