Subj : Re: i need help To : comp.programming From : ssubbarayan Date : Tue Sep 06 2005 06:51 am Joe Butler wrote: > "ssubbarayan" wrote in message > news:1125983796.306890.317920@g44g2000cwa.googlegroups.com... > > > > > "Here's our system. Make it work on OS B. It'll also be required to > continue working on OS A, > and eventually it will need to run on OS C and D and E" > > > > I accept they could have provided a better solution , but one fact is , > > why it was not stated to them earlier that it should work with OS A > > also? > > You mean, in sentence 2 rather than sentence 3? If some one have been tracking this project from the start and really they are technically sound,they would have figured out really that theres something not up to your expectation.But that never seems to be in your case. I am not saying "your" as Joe,but in general your company and your management. > > > > Thinking such things as implicit is where the problem comes from. > > No. Not thinking about, or not wanting to point out potential problems to > the customer is where such problems come from. In our case, it was either > total incompetence, or total dishonesty, since even if the spec. was, "make > it work on B, and I don't care about ANYTHING else." it was still cheaper > and easier to reuse the existing portable code (which was fully documented - > but there were a lot of docs, and it is evident that none of them were ever > read.) > > > Also most cos offshoring work to low cost countries dont really state > > clearly what they wanted.They keep changing requirements after even > > testing is done. > > Yep, that's what happens when you don't think about things first. If you > point all these things out to the customer, it makes one seem like a pain in > the backside, but in the long run, everybody wins. But then the customer will definitely should be cooperative enough to accept the problems,but that never has been the case! > > > What you have stated is one such experience.Why was it > > not communicated to your offshore partner you need it to work for OS A > > also before they started their work ? > > It was. Why can't you see that? It was communicated in starting,but when you know its going out of track,why not pitch in to set things right if you are so competent technically? > > > > Most cos keep quite till testing > > phase and come and say whole design needs to be changed. > > In my experience, this is because they end up with a crap product. If the > product was being engineered by people with any experience, that fact would > be apparent before the work began, and the customer could be gently > persuaded to see that from the start. Secondly, most people are not > expecting to have to send their product out for proof reading. That is, > every subtle error needs to be generated on the test program to see what > error message is going to pop up next. E.g. "Are you sure to backup?"(sic) > [No] [Ok(sic)]. If a good smart project manager is tracking with good immense experience in handling the project technically and managerially from your side,this should not happen.Why does that never happen? > > >Most cos dont > > give any relevant documents to understand the existing code base which > > is main reason for such problems. Now I dont know whom to blame.Also if > > only you have made a portable layer like OS Abstraction layer , you > > would not have required to jump into this project first off all. > > Porting could have been done at your place itself! > > No, porting went overseas for the simple reason that the percieved cost > would be lower. I wasn't even consulted. When I was, and I explained that > the costs were far too high. Then all the lies came back, such as, "it's > technically not possible" - i.e. "don't trust what this guy is saying, it'll > cost a lot more than he's saying it will cost". So first Bring in the trust with in your company.Whats the reason behind not trusting you? Then that shows the incompetency in convincing your boss!When you cant convince your own Boss,how do you expect yourself to convince some one from Third world who is totally foreigner to you?Why cant you prove you can provide cost effective and technically solution to your Boss? > > > For your record , our co an indian one,started to have a project for a > > UK customer with jus 5 guys,today its a 150 people company working for > > same customer . Thats mainly because of the relation and better > > management which has done this. If you know how to manage,then you will > > never be in trouble! > > Yep, but that means for every Indian company, there's at least one UK > customer that's now in deep problems due to the Indian company not knowing > how to manage from the start. At 90% thru a project, we got an email from > the Indians saying that "Manager X had been sacked, because he was > incompetent. Thank goodness that he was removed before any harm was done". > This is the guy that was feeding all the wrong technical info back to the > UK. Now realise that this incompetence cost a UK company $90,000 dollars > over what they should have spent, and the money keeps pouring into that > project because it is out of control. If any sensible customer would be in such a situation,they would snap the project!But that never happens.If every UK co was in problem,there wont be any UK clients in INDIA.But rather,its growing well!For your Information,Most management is done from abroad and Indian managers are coordinators!So you would be able to realise,why people leave in 90%?Poor upper management from customer! > > > > > A joint review of requirements by both the offshoring partner and your > > company would have come handy before jumping into the projects coding > > phase. > > Yep, it was made clear what the requirments were - but, either deception or > incompetence came into play at some stage. Thats where some good manager should pitch in and provide good solution for both! > > > That will solve lots of problems like the one what you faced.All these > > are project management problems rather then a technical one. > > No, you are so wrong there. > > > But I dont approve your full comment on "COWBOYS",because you dont know > > whats a "COW" first of all.You give requirements like "COW" should give > > milk,thinking "BULL" in your mind. > > No, it's a UK phrase meaning: incompetent. Every country will have their way of making such circaustic comments which is quite unhealthy. > > > > > If you generalise one such bad experience and make a premature > > judgement of blaming one whole country for that,I can very well > > say,every project you are going to offshore is never going to be a > > success. > > Perhaps. If I ran the show, it might have different, although I had a hard > time getting some Indian programmers to put my DLL's in the installation > folder rather than the Windows folder (even thought the specification gave > clear instructions to place all the DLLs in the installation folder. I > received pages and pages of documents back from India explaining that DLLs > were supposed to go into Windows/system32 (now, that's because they > eyeballed a load of other DLLs there and assumed that ALL dlls lived there). > That's simple inexperience. But what's not on, is to then attempt to > justify the mistake with technicall documents and still ignore what the > system archictect was telling them to do. You mean to say all foreign system architects are fully 100% sound and competent?If thats the case,there should never be any buggy product! > > > Instead of blaming,just try to see whats wrong in both sides.Unless you > > step in some ones shoes, you wont know the pain. > > Been there, done that. I know the pain, believe me - I've personally dealt > with Indian programmers and managers that are too quick to point out their > origins at Global Corp. X, and therefore their, supposed, authority on this > matter. > > > If what you said is truth(in the way of generalisation), I dont think > > cos offshoring work will be foolish enough to outsource work to > > offshore,just for the sake of cost, facing so much of (misunderstood > > management)problems like what you stated. > > Unfortunately, not all companies have a management that can understand the > technical side of things enough to understand that things are not as rosey > as the dollar cost per hour would suggest. You got the point!So first change your management principles and managers before talking about offshoring! Regards, s.subbarayan .