FreeLists / webproducers / [webproducers] Re: managing off-shore web development???

["Eileen 'Turtle' Parzek" <turtle@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

At 12:11 PM 9/9/2001, Duane Douglas wrote:
>has anyone on this list managed an off-shore web development project?  if
>so, i'd like to hear about your experiences good or bad.

Not exactly, in the sense you are referring to - but the experience I have 
had makes me extremely wary of attempting to do so. I managed a large scale 
development project in 2000 where the entire development team was in Europe 
(Poland) and the content development (data entry) folks were in Los 
Angeles, while I was here in Albany, NY. In this situation, I had a chance 
to meet the lead developer, face to face, when we kicked off the project, 
because they flew us both into LA for 2 weeks. He had been working on the 
project without a project manager or producer type, and although I came in 
as creative director, I quickly took over those other two roles when I saw 
no one was handling it. I remember in the early days, turning over a 
project plan to him - the first he'd ever had, and asking if this would 
help him to manage his end of the project when he went back to poland and 
he said "My got, i've waited all my life for such a thing". Anyway - it 
took us a good long time to establish a way of working together and 
communicating that kept the project on track - learning to deal with 
multiple time zones, multiple languages (the content development manager 
was armenian) and multiple cultures, made me really happy that i'd been 
studying and practiciing the idea of virtual business for years prior. 
Thinking back on the many many pitfalls we faced, in using email as our 
primary means of communication, and having little or no management support 
at the top, we resorted to a lot of guerilla tactics to get that project 
done. I think the relationship I established with both the content dev lead 
and the especially the lead developer, was the most critical aspect of it 
working - and I don't know how that could be done without meeting face to 
face one time at least, and working together at some point. It might be - I 
mean, one of my biggest interests is how to make these cross-cultural 
virtual communications happen - but I haven't had a chance to determine how 
to make it happen with all parties sight unseen. I get the usually 
spamalicious from offshore developers every day, and I ponder it a lot... 
but unless I got a very glowing referral from someone else, knew the 
developers over a long time, or had a chance to meet them or see them in 
action, I'd be very wary. This isn't to say its not possible - but even if 
you have perfected the art of managing a virtual project... have they? I 
work with development  shops all over the country, and it doesn't always 
work - if they can't meet me half way on the communication, time and 
project management ethics that I use, then I find myself not repeating the 
experience. So, just saying, add language, cultural and time barriers, and 
you have a few more wrenches to throw at the monkeys :-)

sorry I'm rambling... sunlight beckons and i'm outta here :

turtle


~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~
Eileen "Turtle" Parzek ~  phone~ 518-505-6617
http://www.turtlesweb.com  mailto:turtle@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
digital artist ~ information architect ~ project mgr ~ consultant



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