Customer Reviews

Offshore Software Development: Making It Work

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I bought a copy of this book and distributed it to many inside my firm. The general consensus was it is eminently readable, clear, concise, and helpful, and summarizes the learning of many experienced individuals who have actually lived and breathed Offshore program execution.

I'm honestly not sure if reviewer John H Kaplan actually read this book. For example, there is a great deal of emphasis on "formal communication" (read: methodology), and how important it is to making Offshore work. Awareness and management of risks, including network security and communcation, financial planning, and even internal communications, are identified and discussed in a pragmatic and accessible fashion.

I take strong exception to this kind of emotional lambasting masquerading as objective feedback. This is not the forum to discuss and decide whether Offshore works. Clearly, if Mr. Kaplan is doing Offshore at all, he is doing it unwillingly. But my firm has had great success with Offshore, both financial as well as in quality of delivery, as many have.

Don't let what is clearly an emotional rant against Offshore Outsourcing deter you from reading and learning from this helpful, focused, and relevant book. Personally, I found the book more useful than Freidman's "The Earth is Flat" as it is written by an actual practitioner -- for practioners.

This book is not fantastic. However, given that material in this area is not plenty, it is the best I have seen so far.

I bought this book close to three years ago when I was thinking of starting my own software development outsourcing venture while I was still hired as a software contractor in the Seattle area. I bought it due to its great rating. However, it does not help me much as how to start out my own outsoucing venture and making use of US job experience and China connections that I think is a nich I have. So this book sits on the shelf for 3 years until recently I re-started to read it. The subject is mostly helping big US businesses on how to start an offshore outsourcing initiatives and making use of the existing services of those big offshore outsourcing service providers. It is not intended to help India or Chinese programmers here who are thinking of venturing into outsourcing as a small consulting business making use of your nich of knowing both US and another country (such as India or China). However, as I am reading this book again, I found the vocabularies used are very rich and I guess those corporate executive vocabularies are not often learned at a lower level as a programmer. By learning those vocabularies you can learn to know how the executives in the big corporations are thinking and care about.

Offshore by Tandy Gold will provide you with methodology, best practices, identify pit falls and even helps you prioritize your offshore projects by providing real-world examples and experience. As a project management professional I highly recommend this book as a value add to the library of other managers contemplating or already involved in off-shore development. Presented in clear language and very comprehensive.