Making Sure Your Outsourced Project is on Track
When you outsource a project or a task of a project to an external agency, one of the biggest concerns is control. One of the biggest mistakes, then, that companies make when turning over an IT project to an outside company, whether than company is local or as far away as India, is not maintaining the same level of diligent control over the project that they would keep if the project were begin done in house.
It is important to use the same project management methods to assure that outsourcing freelancers or companies are held accountable to a strict set of standards and that their work is being checked that it is on track with what the company needs and has asked for. If you turn over a project to an external vendor and walk away for a month or two without any review over what they are doing, you have a high probability that you will not get what you asked for when the product is delivered.
Local control over the work being done by outsourcing companies is critical to assure the business is getting what they are paying for from the company doing the work. This is just as important whether the job is a two week long documentation project or a three year project development process. There should be a single management individual assigned to keeping tabs on the vendor or vendors to whom the work was outsourced and to hold them accountable on a at least a weekly basis.
There is no substitute for maintaining a tight adherence to project management standards even if the tasks of the project are being outsourced. That means that the project must go through a strict requirements definition and specifications development so when you turn the project over to the outsourcing company, they have a clear mandate for what they are being assigned to do. Before the freelance contractor or outsourcing business is given the contract to perform the work, they must participate in the project definition phase and sign off that they understand the ENTIRE project and the expectations and deliverables for the phase they are accepting.
Further, it is important that the contractor understand the interfaces they must be able to support and the business needs of the project itself. There are no IT projects that exist in a vacuum. They all are justified by the needs of the business. And just as internal IT departments are held accountable to those business needs, external vendors doing the work in an outsourcing mode must also understand those requirements so they can deliver a product that fits the need of the project in the first place.
Projects being done in an outsourcing mode must also participate in routine project team meetings, even if that participation is by conference call. These weekly meetings are crucial for assuring the project is on track and to surface any problems, questions and follow up tasks that must be done both internally and by the vendor to assure the project is not drifting away from the scope and the specifications of the definition documents.
Vendors performing work for the IT department must also be prepared to submit weekly status reports and to undergo routine reviews of the work they are doing by internal management. These communications tools can be used by the internal project coordinator to monitor that outsourced project steps are being conducted in sync with what the company asked for and that the project is on target for completion in accordance with the project schedule drawn up before development gets underway.
If the outsourcing company balks at being held to a standard or auditing and communication about their project progress, that is grounds to eliminate them during the RFP process. Early in the process of selecting the company to receive the contract to perform the outsourced work, you must determine that the vendor understands the project development method and that they will be compliant with the process and answerable to management’s questions and concerns.
They must also be aware that change to the project specifications are not to be tolerated without the formal process of going through change management to assure the changes are in step with the project goals. If the vendor is able and willing to abide by these constraints, you will have a productive and fruitful business relationship with them.
