Dominique Stender Good software is only the beginning

Successful offshoring part 2: The coordinator

This is the second article in a series on successful offshoring. If you missed the first article which handled the added complexities of time(zone) management, I recommend you click the link and start there.

Here I will discuss the role of the coordinator and what its responsibilities are (and are not). What to look for in the person filling the role but also how to enable this person to do a good job.

Pick a good coordinator

Fact is, you need a dedicated coordinator with great social skills, management capabilities and thorough technical expertise to make offshoring a success.

There will be clarifications. There will be complications and missing pieces of information that no one did foresee. For all of these you'll need a solution as soon as possible in order to keep productivity high. Mind those time zones!

This is why you really want to assign one of your best employees to the position of coordinator.

Enable your coordinator to be successful

First, he has to be willing to do the coordination, he must believe in the whole endeavour and be willing to travel to the co-location every other month. If he doesn't believe in it and in him making it happen, you risk creating a self fulfilling prophecy and the project might fail. Also, coordination done purely from a distance is futile, so the will to travel is mandatory.

Second, you have to reassign all of his previous responsibilities to other people. The initial months of setting up will require all his efforts. It needs time for the offshoring "engine" to run in - during that time you will want the full attention of your coordinator on the endeavor. When the projects start to run smoothly he'll probably be able to take back a few of his earlier duties, but to expect that he will be able to do so from the start is an illusion.

Third, he will need to have the power to make decisions on his own.

Avoid to make him the responsible puppet. Give him power.

Chose the lesser pain

Yes, assigning one of your top employees to the coordinator and freeing him of all other duties is expensive and potentially complicated. You'll probably need to hire new staff. Other seasoned members of your staff may have to take the burden of extra work for quite a while. Customers might get slightly irritated when you remove your coordinator from their project.

It will hurt. A bit. For a short period of time.

Assigning a lesser qualified employee to the offshoring endeavor would hurt you much more. So will giving an excellent employee not enough time or power to do his job well.

Projects would be delayed or - god forbid - fail because the coordinator doesn't see the gaps or is not empowered to close them. Customers might get really unhappy and may pick another contractor. Your employees may burn out. A general negative image of the offshoring partners and developers may form among your own staff.

That'd hurt much more, much longer.

Coordinator without active project involvement

I argue that the coordinator should not be part of any specific project team. His major job is to keep the projects running smoothly and to identify areas that need improvement. He needs to have the birds eye view on all projects. Experience tells me that you miss the global scope quite fast if you are actively involved.

Note that it is irrelevant whether the coordinator is responsible for one or for five projects. Active personal involvement will make him lose his global scope.

Responsibilities

He needs to watch the teams spirit. Does communication between the locations happen frequently and soon enough? Are people happy or hesitant to use the phone? Does each side of the team see the other side as an equal partner? Do people know each other personally - at least a bit -  across the locations? If communication is good the battle is almost won.

He needs to aim for clarity. Are all tasks and work items understood and without doubts? Does the offshore team know who to contact? Do they know what will happen next week and how the project status is in general?

He needs to ensure efficiency! If hardware or software are inadequate or the working environment as a whole is not suitable this constitutes a bottleneck that needs to be removed. Are people working smart? Do they know how to use the tools they have efficiently?

Related Posts:

• Successful offshoring part 3: Preparation
• Successful offshoring part 1: Time management