Reading the pulse of an offshore Project - what to look for?
Have you been thorough the process of outsourcing your Agile project to an offshore service provider? If yes - you must have wondered how you should be measuring the progress & success of the work that is getting carried out by your service provider. But what could be the measuring criteria? How do you know if you are heading the right direction or not?
In this session we look in to the aspects of identifying how one may successfully measure the state of an ongoing delivery model & based on it, how we refine/improve the outcome.
Backdrop:
Over the last 10 years while working in onsite-offshore model, what I have personally come across is the fact - whenever we work on Agile, we do come across one magic phrase every now & then - "I have also worked on Agile". Yes, we all have! :) Agile is simple & there is no rocket science in doing so while delivering across onsite & offshore. We all know the drill i.e. set up some time zone overlaps, establish virtual communication channels, identify some Proxy POs, have some kind of "all hands" infrequently & we should be good. Isn't it?
We all know these (at least we all claim so)! But then why is it that some of the projects do better than the rest & some even fail? Why is this that we don't realize that if you offshore your work in Kolkata, you deal with a different cultural barrier than if you offshore the work at Bangalore (or vice versa)? Did we ever consider that it is upon us - the so called Agilists - to bring up the Agile knowhow to our clients (& many a times - learn from clients as well)? These are the simple - yet mostly unnoticed elements - which play a crucial role in deciding how a project succeeds in Agile offshoring & we should be able to take them in to consideration.
Outline/Structure of the Talk
The discussion has been kept to 20 minutes. Intentionally a small window - as the intent is to spark the thought process & encourage all to think on these lines.
- Offshoring is done with specific objectives in mind - what are the general ones?
- How do we measure weather those objectives are met or not?
- But beyond the financials (time & budget), how do we measure the success of "Business Value Delivery" (BVD)?
- What are the key KPIs one should look for to understand how far BDV is made?
- How do we measure the KPIs & how do we get genuine data (e.g. in a Sprint, a team will generally meet it's committment - as it may start with a low figure, and gradually will pull in as it progresses & eventually end up victorious)?
- Good, bad & the ugly truth about Agile Offshoring
Learning Outcome
This session focuses on providing a guidance towards how offshore projects typically tend to drive the work & what could be the areas - always under radar from client perspective. It provides opportunity to both client & service providers to improve the ongoing process.
Specific focus on the followings:
- What to look for - when you try to measure your progress?
- How do you look for the right answers?
- When you get the answers, how do you derive your report?
- Corrections? What & how?
Target Audience
Agile Managers, Coaches, CEO, CIO, CFO, Vendor Managers, Project Managers, Program Managers, Scrum Masters
Links
http://www.pmi.org.in/manageindia/volume3/issue06/chapter.news.html
I am the Chapter Engagement Representative (CER) for PMI West Bengal Chapter & conduct the training/workshop for the chapter.
Also, I do write at times & some of the publications are availabe at ScrumAlliance portal & Cognizant web site.
schedule Submitted 9 years ago
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