Forum Moderators: LifeinAsia
We've previously been uncomfortable doingthe graphics locally, which we forward to the developers for integration, because it lacks the professional quality on final integration by the developers.
The quotes we'e receiving locally and in Western countries estimate that around 4-500 hours @ around US$80 per hour is required, just to get things moving, and then there will likely be maintenance of 20 hours a month plus additional development time for ongoing projects.
The benefit of doing this locally is that we can likely work faster, have better intuition and likely better control. Also if something goes wrong it's easier to secure the contract through a local jurisdiction.
We have considered outsourcing software development to Eastern Europe with a native speaking liason and project manager here. If we did this we would expect to pay on a fixed job rate around US$25 per hour inclusing local project management time. With our project management here this might go to US$30 [ IMO ].
I've personally experienced a "nightmare development" and we had to do the unthinkable of recovering funds from the Eastern European developer through localised debt collectors and a local Court Order. Not a pleasant experience - and i never want to have this happen again. I've also heard other horror stories as well as some very satisfied business owners who have achieved the opposite. So i want to focus on positive ways to work with development partners in Eastern Europe.
What are the key factors for identifying, managing and securing "top quality" development in Eastern Europe or elsewhere?
[edited by: Whitey at 9:47 pm (utc) on Nov. 10, 2006]
Compile a list of firms and ask each one of them to build a simple application. The key here is to limit the scope to something that can be done in more or less a week - in our case we asked for a calendar from which you can reserve conference rooms. The cost for this was aprx €1000 / supplier and it gave us a lot of valuable information: how fast they answer questions, the quality of their code, if they need a lot of hand holding etc etc.
Also, once you find someone reliable, take as much advantage of local project managers as possible. Don't write up the entire project specification at once but start by giving them general guidelines, showing them more or less what you want and letting them take care of specifying exactly what will be built (because I guess your time is worth more than €20 / hour). Chances are they have already done something similar and know more or less what you want...
Also, have them deliver something runnable often and you will have plenty of time to test and make corrections "as you go".
Hope this was more or less the kind of info you were looking for... good luck. ;)
We had some similar thoughts on building some understanding on how they would work.
An area that has given us a lot of bother is the templating and presentation. So whilst the backend may be technically OK, I'm seeing that the templating is often not up to "high quality" standards, such as that which would be required for a high quality brand site.
This is even if we supply the HTML
Have you experienced this, and how do you manage it?
Also, how much time do you believe needs to be costed in for "project managing" the "local project manager" - just an estimate?
Stay away from "one man operations", try to find an established firm with a lot of good references / sample projects, pick the "expensive" option and, as with everything, do not forget to negotiate the price down. ;) It's a buyers market, let them know that you are aware of this or you'll overpay in the long run.
As to project management it's hard to give a % figure, "it depends" on the project and on how clear a specification you write, but, based on our experiences I'd guess somewhere around 10% (so 40 hours on a 400 hour project). Try to not to be ambiguous or use too much "difficult language" in your specification, that'll save you a lot of question-answering later on...
Also, besides "project managing the project manager", don't forget to factor in some time for writing and running acceptance tests on the application they send you - if you've got a good SRS you can outsource this part as well and just act as the project manager (which is what you want, eventually) but I wouldn't recommend it at first. At least not before you've done a couple of projects with the company, tested the applications yourself and can be sure that they are more or less "in tune" with what you need.
