Project Offshorability

Factors which will influence the decision as to whether a project is offshorable - The
following points do NOT say that we cannot offshore a project, but will highlight the
scenarios where we need to look into and resolve the issues associated with them if
such projects are to be offshored.

1. Size - If the project is very small, consider the overheads of offshoring it.
For eg: A project which requires a 3 member team for a 4 week period offshore
may have a team lead / project manager who would spend most of the time in
interaction and co-ordination with onsite / offshore teams. The overhead could
well be equivalent to 1 person.

2. Clarity of business requirements - Offshoring a project where the business

requirements are not clearly defined, will result in offshore teams either waiting
for the requirements to be clarified and signed off OR spend a lot of time in
reworking based on the changing requirements.

However, this is true even if the project is executed at onsite.

3. Type of project – Consider if the work is changes or enhancements to an

existing application and if these are one off and off changes or going to be
continuous (which will become a similar case to the point 2 above).

4. Dependent projects running in parallel - If two or more dependent projects

are running at two different shores then need to analyze the impact of
interdependency and what effect any change (requirements, design, schedules
etc.,) would have on offshored project.

5. Dependency on third parties - If there are lots of dependencies on third parties

/ external agencies.

6. At what stage the project is – If the project is already in development phase, it

may not be worth sending the project offshore. It is best if the requirements are
analysed and the project is designed by the offshore teams, as they will have full
understanding of the project.

7. Communication links – There will be lot of overheads in synchronising the code

and deliverables, where we can not use the communication links for
developments. eg: Some applications where we can not give offshore teams the
licenses to access / work on a third party application / product.

8. Defined owners / availability of owners – If a project has lot of user groups as

stake holders and if there are no defined owners or they are not available during
the project execution.