{"id":265,"date":"2012-07-27T14:09:01","date_gmt":"2012-07-27T18:09:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.agilityfeat.com\/?p=265"},"modified":"2012-07-27T14:09:01","modified_gmt":"2012-07-27T18:09:01","slug":"outsourcing-pitfalls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/34.200.113.64\/en\/blog\/2012\/07\/outsourcing-pitfalls\/","title":{"rendered":"The Potential Pitfalls of Outsourced Development"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Potential Pitfalls of Outsourced Development<\/strong><\/h1>\n

If you are looking for a nearshore agile team for a project there are some common problems to look out for, or you risk losing time and money. The short and sweet summary of these problems is: people aren\u2019t always who they claim to be.<\/p>\n

Body shops<\/strong><\/h2>\n

An outsourcing body shop only cares about headcount. \u00a0They just want to get \u00abwarm bodies\u00bb in seats and maximize head count so they can charge more. \u00a0They are less concerned with matching skill sets, culture, and maximizing efficiency. \u00a0Our agile methods ensure that we have to get you high quality people, because you will be interacting with them every day.<\/p>\n

Not Real Agile<\/strong><\/h2>\n

We don\u2019t have a monopoly on what \u2018real agile\u2019 is, but there are definitely some companies that are using the term for its good connotations and \u201cbuzz word compatibility\u201d without really practicing any agile methods. There are quite a few warning signs that agile is nothing more than a buzzword for a company:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Check to see if they have a process of getting rapid feedback on changes.<\/strong> \u00a0How often are they willing to show you the code? Will developers demo specific features for you on request, or do they only want to show you things in organized demo sessions? \u00a0The correct answer is to give you full access to a test environment and not to wait for the formal Scrum demo before showing you functionality. \u00a0They should also be willing to show you a couple of options, or regularly say things like \u201cAfter the standup can I show you my solution\/idea for this story?\u201d<\/li>\n
  2. See if they have standups<\/a>.<\/strong> \u00a0Are the stand ups every day? Do they keep them short (15 minutes or less)? On skype or some other tool? \u00a0It\u2019s important that these be actual audio or video calls, not just email standups. \u00a0They are intended to be highly productive and short calls for communication, coordination, and collaboration, not for detailed problem solving or boring status reports.<\/li>\n
  3. Do they have small releases often?<\/strong> Can they release to production after every iteration? \u00a0Do they automate testing so that you can be confident in the code changes?<\/li>\n
  4. Do they want you to send them a big requirements document up front, or are they comfortable with change?<\/strong> \u00a0They need to be comfortable with you changing requirements every sprint, or every 2 weeks. \u00a0If they want you to lay out the fixed scope up front, then they are not being realistic, and they may be more interested in contract negotiation than real collaboration.<\/li>\n
  5. Do they use retrospectives<\/a> for continuous improvement?<\/li>\n
  6. Do they know about important Agile concepts<\/a>?<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Other Red Flags<\/strong><\/h2>\n

    There are some other things that you might want to look out for, depending on your business interests. We suggest doing nearshore agile<\/a> in Costa Rica<\/a>, but that doesn\u2019t mean doing business outside of Costa Rica or without agile is going to turn out badly. Just be aware that outsourcing can have a lot of hidden costs, that can be mitigated through the use of nearshore and agile development. As always be wary of things that are too good to be true. Agile methods can produce amazing results, but that takes a lot of hard work from highly skilled and experienced teams like ours, and a good process of feedback from our business partners.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    The Potential Pitfalls of Outsourced Development If you are looking for a nearshore agile team for a project there are some common problems to look out for, or you risk losing time and money. The short and sweet summary of these problems is: people aren\u2019t always who they claim to be. Body shops An outsourcing […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":""},"categories":[4,47],"tags":[5,73,65,44,46,74,54],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","yoast_head":"\nThe Potential Pitfalls of Outsourced Development - AgilityFeat Panama Software Test Center<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/agilityfeatpanama.com\/blog\/2012\/07\/outsourcing-pitfalls\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Potential Pitfalls of Outsourced Development - AgilityFeat Panama Software Test Center\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Potential Pitfalls of Outsourced Development If you are looking for a nearshore agile team for a project there are some common problems to look out for, or you risk losing time and money. The short and sweet summary of these problems is: people aren\u2019t always who they claim to be. Body shops An outsourcing […]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/agilityfeatpanama.com\/blog\/2012\/07\/outsourcing-pitfalls\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"AgilityFeat Panama Software Test Center\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2012-07-27T18:09:01+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Est. reading time\">\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"3 minutes\">\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/34.200.113.64\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/34.200.113.64\/\",\"name\":\"AgilityFeat Panama Software Test Center\",\"description\":\"AgilityFeat Panama offers customized, multilevel web and mobile software testing for a variety of industries.\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":\"https:\/\/34.200.113.64\/?s={search_term_string}\",\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/agilityfeatpanama.com\/blog\/2012\/07\/outsourcing-pitfalls\/#webpage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/agilityfeatpanama.com\/blog\/2012\/07\/outsourcing-pitfalls\/\",\"name\":\"The Potential Pitfalls of Outsourced Development - AgilityFeat Panama Software Test Center\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/34.200.113.64\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2012-07-27T18:09:01+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2012-07-27T18:09:01+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/34.200.113.64\/#\/schema\/person\/a2c2bcbe349ce4f1f16cf1a61bede93e\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/agilityfeatpanama.com\/blog\/2012\/07\/outsourcing-pitfalls\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/34.200.113.64\/#\/schema\/person\/a2c2bcbe349ce4f1f16cf1a61bede93e\",\"name\":\"Cole\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/34.200.113.64\/#personlogo\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"url\":\"http:\/\/0.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Cole\"}}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/34.200.113.64\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/34.200.113.64\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/34.200.113.64\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/34.200.113.64\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/34.200.113.64\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=265"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/34.200.113.64\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/34.200.113.64\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=265"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/34.200.113.64\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=265"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/34.200.113.64\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=265"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}