Outsourcing run amok
On March 24th The outsourcing Weblog ran published a post that said,
With the many challenges facing large pharmaceutical companies nowadays there is a need to reduce development costs by as much as 30-40%, while at the same time significantly shortening development cycle times. If outsourcing is to meet these challenges, new models of collaborative and cooperative working are needed. (http://www.outsourcing-weblog.com/50226711/research_and_markets_offers_outsourcing_clinical_development.php)
Frankly I disagree completely. The answer lies not in sending work and jobs overseas but in improving the way we do what we do here in America. Experience teaches us that just shipping work and jobs to a country whose standard of living is considerably less than ours does not automatically equate to gains in efficiency and reduction in development costs. In fact, there is plenty of evidence that projects done by Indian, Chinese and Russian firms don’t result in any real savings at all and in some cases cost more than if we had simply done those projects here in America.
The bottom line is that modern projects cannot be planned, managed and executed through stubborn reliance on outdated and inapplicable processes. Today’s business evolves in an organic manner and projects have to be managed with this in mind – as functionality is developed and validated new and altered requirements are discovered and must be incorporated. Traditional processes have no mechanism for dealing with this real-time evolution.
That’s where Insourcing comes in. Insourcing is more than just a catchy title. Insourcing is a new way of approaching the work of projects. It involves changing the fundamental paradigm of managing project based work. Insourcing is about changing the way we think about the work we do and how we do it and, as a result, increasing performance and efficiency.
There are two hemispheres to insourcing. The first hemisphere is about people, and about one’s ability to lead, motivate, inspire and reward. This hemisphere deals with how to become an effective leader who can revolutionize the efficiency and productivity of staff members.
In order to solve the fundamental problems of software development we must first acknowledge that most leaders don’t do a very good job of leading. Most leaders, if they were totally honest, would not be able to affirmatively answer, “Would you follow you as a leader?”
Effective leadership is a key factor in project success. Every project has to have a leader. The leader is responsible for the tone of the project and is the one person who can get the project staff to achieve remarkable results.
The second hemisphere is about process. Insourcing is not process reengineering – it is a process revolution. Agile processes begin to address this need but they go only so far and typically deal only with software development. In order to increase efficiency and keep work in the US where it belongs we need to apply the principles of Agility to all work products not just to software development.
