Strategies for working with Off-shore testers?

[minestrone]

I have done several trips to "help" some off-shore vendors.

A lot depends on the managers.

I mean the team manager and the managers of other teams around them.

The strongest managers will transfer under performing members to other teams or when they are under pressure they will borrow staff.

The team member will be instructed to send a mail to their client asking a question and say something about waiting for a reply. The will be on loan until you reply in full. If the stronger manager still needs them, repeat.

One manager told us about the problem in private, we had to invent some security issue that required the section of the office that the team were working in, to be screened off with a security door that could only be accessed by a team card. Just to stop other managers stealing our staff.

I am not saying this is your issue, but most of the time things are not what they seam.

Try to make friends with at least one member of the team, and try to get the back-story on what’s really going on.

It seems to be a popular story that offshore resources go missing, sometimes for days, unless you are on top of them all the time. I have long suspected that offshore workers spend much of their time not working on the stuff you set them.

[amcdonald]

Nuke them from space it's the only way to be sure

[darrenb]

Which means spending more time and money on design that it would have cost to just code and test on location. Why do people keep falling for this offshoring con?

It's referred to as 'ideology'. Means that nobody believes it, but everybody pretends to believe it, just in case everybody else who pretends to believe it actually does believe it.

[mudskipper]

Wrote a long rant and deleted it, as I realised it contained nothing that could be described as advice. Truth is, having been through it, I haven't a clue what I could do differently next time.

[cojak]

Well, I'm in a meeting next week with the Testing Manager to see how we can improve the situation, so I'll let you know how it goes.

In the meantime I've found this Explaining Testing to Them - James Bach - Satisfice, Inc.

(That really is a great website Mitch ).

[Mich the Tester]

Well, I'm in a meeting next week with the Testing Manager to see how we can improve the situation, so I'll let you know how it goes.

In the meantime I've found this Explaining Testing to Them - James Bach - Satisfice, Inc.

(That really is a great website Mitch ).

Warning; Bach's stuff is controversial. He's right, but he's quite a combative character.