Outsource It!

Book excerpt: If you need to expand your business but not your budget, if your group has an intense but short-term project, if you don't have the skill set to get a job done-it's time to think about outsourcing. Starting from the first step (should you outsource part of your tech work?) to the last (how can you protect your intellectual property?), you'll learn everything about setting up projects overseas. Sending your prized assets halfway around the world-or halfway around the country-takes a lot of courage for technical leads accustomed to doing things themselves. This book is full of real-life examples that show you how outsourcing really works. Learn how to choose your outsourcing destination by defining selection criteria tables and applying weights to them. You'll see how to pick the right vendor and understand why recommendations aren't the right way to do it. Then calculate the quality of the code your offshore developers turn in. You'll find out how to adjust your waterfall or agile project for an overseas team, and you'll see why outsourcing QA is not always the prudent approach. Your offshore team will never be as productive as your local team-you'll learn why that doesn't always matter. Finally, you'll discover how much money you'll spend to outsource and how much you can save-which is sometimes more than you'd think and less than you'd like. Written by an expert who's seen it all, Outsource It! will help you avoid mistakes and give you the confidence and the skills to take your project wherever it needs to go.