This is presentation how SolveITLabs is using existing project management methodologies to manage offshore teams to delivery software development projects for US clients

1. September 2, 2010
Your Global
Application
Development
Partner

2. Corporate Facts
Financially Rock-solid
 $7 M in Revenues in 2008
 Strong focus on fundamentals
Offerings
 Top-notch services
 Flexible Engagement
Model
People
 Over 200 employees
 Strong Leadership
Infrastructure
 State-of-the-art
& fail safe
 Disaster recovery
& Business
continuity
Delivery Capability
 Onsite-offshore model
 High level of technical skills & Domain competency
Quality
 ISO 9001:2001
Founded in 2001 in San Francisco, USA
 2 continents, 2 offices, 2 offshore centers
Clients
 Global Leaders: France Telecom, Quest Software,
InterContinental Hotel Group, Protective Life
Insurance
 Startups and mid-size product companies

3. Engagement Model
Phase 4
Phase 1
Phase 3
Phase 2
CLIENT
ENGAGEMENT
TEAM
Phase 1 – Assess Client Goals
 Prepare
 Set a Baseline
 Identify
 Recommend
Phase 2 – Plan/Set Tuning Parameters
 Goals
 Time-frame
 Milestones
 Resources
Phase 3 – Launch Engagement
 Execute plan
Phase 4 – Review and Correct
 Pilot Project
 Compare with baselines
 Adjust team, approach

4. Project Intranet
• Project Intranet to support information flow and access
 Consolidated project status
 Access to all project results, documents, interfaces
 Collaborative environment for Client and Vendor
 Distribution of information between project’s stakeholders (“active” information)
 Centralized repository (“passive” information)
• Access – in time, permanent, full volume
• Security
• Information (metrics, reports, documents for entire project areas)

5. Several factors strengthen the business case for outsourcing services in Russia...
 Factor cost differential – Wage costs about 20% of US levels; real estate costs about 30% of US levels
 Time zone advantage – The nearly 11-hour time zone difference between US and Russia enables ‘follow
the sun’ 24x7 coverage
 Robust telecom infrastructure – Russia’s telecom infrastructure today is world-class and cost-
competitive, with various long-distance connectivity options, high-bandwidth local loop networks and high-speed
Internet access
 Government incentives – Russian government is actively promoting offshore services, by setting up
technology parks and other infrastructure, speeding up investment approvals and providing attractive tax incentives

6. Offshore Delivery Model
Users,
Customers
Front Office
Customer facing
Back Office
Russia
1stlevelSupport
2nd and 3rd Level Support
Front Office
Functional
Responsibilities
Back Office
Functional
Responsibilities
Common tools and Processes
Knowledge Base
Service Management
Quality Management
Technical Infrastructure
Development
Center
Of course, the split of work
between front and back offices
may change!

7. US/Offshore Work-Split
1
Client’s
Business Users*
Client’s Helpdesk Front Office
Support Team
Client’s Systems
US Offshore
2 3
4
Client SolveITLabs US
Office
SolveITLabs
Development
Center
Log ticket
Ticket assigned
Ticket assigned to
Support Team
Periodic face to face
meetings Service Delivery Manager monitoring operations
3

8. Types of offshore projects
There are 2 main types of offshore projects
 Fixed-price projects
• Black box for the customer
• Well-defined specifications
• Not at heart of Customer’s Information System
Or highly risky if they are!
 Collaborative/Agile projects
• Moving specifications
• IT teams on both sides
- Possibly developers on both sides
- Possibly Architects/QA on one side and development team on the other side
• Minimal project duration required
- For processes/tools/communications to set up on place
- For people interactions to reach a satisfactory level
• Can tackle complex projects (and with higher satisfaction levels)

9. Role of Onsite Coordinator
Should take neutral position as much as possible
Handles administrative tasks:
Arrival/Departure administration (secure id card, email/access account, intranet account, mailing lists, etc)
Organization of visits (identification of requirement, dates, agendas, people) in both directions
Visa handling
Infrastructure for offshore team:
Infrastructure coordination + improvements (monitor performances, tune tools) - with help from customer’s IT team
Organizational Role:
Weekly technical and management conf calls with all the teams (dev team +Customer team) + follow up from
these calls
Management Status Meetings
Communication facilitating + related communication improvements
Crisis escalation investigation + handling
Accompany Onsite members during offshore visits, ensuring success of agenda/visit.
Methodology/Expertise:
Definition of Project Development Process with “offshore in mind” and continuous improvements (e.g. short iterations
introduction, detailed planning, acceptance criteria for code delivery, intranet setup, etc).
Work inside the teams to implement the collaborative development process.
Quality suggestions + improvements (testing strategy / build improvements for quality + measurements)
Continuous build + testing + collaborative development processes
Architecture + implementation of regression testing

10. Offshore Outsourcing - No Micromanagement
Local
Project Lead
Developer
Project
Lead
Developer
Developer
onsite offshore
Project
Manager
Developer
Developer
Developer
onsite offshore

11. Infrastructure
VPN over
internet
Offshore
firewallfirewall
Onsite
Source
Repository
Continuous
releases
Intranet (Build
results, Issue
tracker)
DMZ reachable from offshore
firewall

12. Communication Tools
• Travel: Every 2 months
• “Word” docs: 1 every month
• Phone: 3 calls per week
• Intranet: 1 topic modified per day
• Email: several times per day
• Through builds: every day, 2 times a week
• Chat: continuously
Valueinteamknowledgesharing
Usage frequency
Travels
Word
document
Intranet
Phone
C
Video Conference
Chat
Forum
Email

13. How to share knowledge ?
Travels in both directions
Especially before new subjects
Functional training for Project Leads
Have Project Leads do the business conception
As much as possible
Have Project Leads do the detailed design
Open chat channels with functional persons
Should have dedicated onsite persons. 1 per team => 1 person per 10 developers roughly.
decrease over the time.
Helpful to have onsite coordinators
Send functional tests along with use cases
Have separate team writing scripts and running them

14. Project Development Approach
P1:
Business Proposal
P2:
Requirement
Clarification
P3:
Project Planning &
Prioritization
P4:
Design and
Prototype
P5:
Documentation
P6:
Development
P7:
Testing &
Quality Assurance
P8:
Deploy
Owner: Sponsor
Approval
Process
Owner: Product Manager
Requirement
Approval
Owner: Project Manager Owner: Project Team
Project
Review
Design
Review
Code
Review
Acceptance
Review
Owner: Project Team
Owner: Project TeamOwner: Operations
Owner: Operations

15. P7
Release Mgmt & QA
Regression Tests
Performance
Tests
P8
Operations
P6 - Back-end Development
Integration Testing
• HTML coding
• Page Tagging
• Page Validation Test
• Compatibility Test
• Implement Biz Logic
• Implement Database
• Implement Interfaces
• Unit Testing
• Functional Testing
Security Audit
Usability Tests
Portal Validation
Rollout Programs
P9
Project
Debrief
P1
Business Proposal
P2
Requirements
Clarification
P3
Planning
P4
Design/Prototype
• Conduct Technical
Assessment
• Review:
– Content Quality
– Usability Quality
– Operational SLA
• Update P1 through
P4 documents
• Refine Project Plan
– Time lines
– Resources
P5
Finalize Product Spec
Remedial Plan
Lessons Learned
Operation
Procedures
SLA
Prototype
Mockups
Wireframes
Business
Flowchart
Infrastructure
Design Doc.
Functional
Specification
Draft SLA
Document
P6 - Front-end Development
•Define Business
Goals
•Determine Project
Expectations
•Core
Competency
•ROI
•Time to
Market
•Define Critical Success
factors
•Review Project Key
Players
•Estimate costs
•Project Approval
•Identify all Requirements
•Define Project Scope,
Objectives, and Budget
•Design Business Flow Process
•Evaluate business
benefit and Project COST
•Prepare Marketing Doc
and Plan
•Feature/Benefit
•Positioning
•Promotion tactics
•Negotiate Contract
•Define User Experience
•Conduct User Focus groups
•Project Approval
Create Visual Design
•Build:
–UI Prototype
–Back-end Prototype
•Finalize Content
•Prototype Usability testing
•Design Data Schemas
•Detailed Application design
•Identify API’s
•Detail Infrastructure design
•Define Data Elements
•Define Images
•QA for Content&UI
•Create Test Plan and Cases
•Develop Usability testing
Protocols
•Develop Use Cases
•Develop Conceptual Design
•Infrastructure
•User Interface
•Create Project Plan
•Document all assumptions
•Define:
–Issues
–Milestones
–Resources
•Identify Content needs
•Create marketing material
•Plan Pilot, if required
•Technical Assessment
•Operational Assessment
•Alpha
•Beta

16. Project Iterations
• Fixed iteration delivery dates (Must not be changed, content can change)
• Iterations must list *all* tasks taking ½ day or more
 To prevent misunderstanding
 To allow easy progress follow up
 To generate release notes automatically
 Done using Issue Driven Development

17. Offshore/Onsite Testing
Developer
workstations
Dev Server
QA/Staging
Server
Production
Environment
Development platform
Set up from offshore
- Unit tests (mocks)
- Some integration
tests
- Integration testing
(manual)
- Functional tests by
developers (manual)
- Technical / Functional
tests (manual)
- Performance testing
(manual)
- Functional tests by
end users (manual)
- Client customers
UAT
Environment

18. Suggestions
Requires good onsite coordinators
To solve communication issues due to language and cultural differences
To act as “harmonizers”, improve communication
To shield teams from the wearing effect of working from a distance
Requires a lot of travel, communication
Hard to work with someone you didn’t see - leads to misunderstanding
At all levels – Project Managers, Team Leads, Architects
Share activities between onsite/offshore
Not just development, but also
− Business Requirements, Architecture Design, System Testing, etc
Allow offshore people to participate actively in the development process
Share the project knowledge among all project team members
Write functional test cases before development starts
Helps transfer business knowledge
Helps to catch misunderstanding early
Can be automated by QA Developers

19. Waterfall Development Model
A waterfall model
with feedback can
be very effective choice
to design a system that is
clearly described. In this case
only a few minor changes can be
made in system design or its requirements.
Also Waterfall model creates completed results in
each phase being done and forever.