Involved in a big migration of Life apps and data from several platforms to one new one.
Business, systems analysis, data migration and SMEs for both the current and target platforms are located in 2 UK sites 80 miles apart.
Programming and testing is in India at 3 sites hundreds of miles apart.
Project has pretty good requirements documentation and preliminary designs.
The Indian programmers are proficient at design and programming (really). I can't speak for testing as this hasn't started.
However, they have zero knowledge of the source systems and little generic Life business knowledge - they are picking it up as they go along. They have a reasonable knowledge of the target platform
Everything's fine if they understand the requirements, but its a total nightmare if they don't. Written requests for clarification are answered, then there is a pause, after which they ask another question which shows they don't need clarification on details, they need full blown education in the whole business area.
Without it they will never understand the subtleties in the requirements.
This is against a background of project management having an expectation that supporting offshore will be 'a background task' requiring little resource.
I have no authority over people or processes, but I feel I am started to be held account for the slow progress offshore.
I am know really appreciating the difference it makes if you can sit with someone showing them stuff on the screen, sketching out things on a piece of paper and being able to look into their eyes to check understanding.
Any ideas? We have no video conferencing (I know - how mad is that with 5 far flung sites?), we do have teleconferencing which is used a little.
Maybe I just have to accept that this is how things are done now and put up with it in exchange for the monthly fee? The moneys quite good and I only have to do about 39hrs/week despite being on a day rate. The local folks are friendly and sociable.
Business, systems analysis, data migration and SMEs for both the current and target platforms are located in 2 UK sites 80 miles apart.
Programming and testing is in India at 3 sites hundreds of miles apart.
Project has pretty good requirements documentation and preliminary designs.
The Indian programmers are proficient at design and programming (really). I can't speak for testing as this hasn't started.
However, they have zero knowledge of the source systems and little generic Life business knowledge - they are picking it up as they go along. They have a reasonable knowledge of the target platform
Everything's fine if they understand the requirements, but its a total nightmare if they don't. Written requests for clarification are answered, then there is a pause, after which they ask another question which shows they don't need clarification on details, they need full blown education in the whole business area.
Without it they will never understand the subtleties in the requirements.
This is against a background of project management having an expectation that supporting offshore will be 'a background task' requiring little resource.
I have no authority over people or processes, but I feel I am started to be held account for the slow progress offshore.
I am know really appreciating the difference it makes if you can sit with someone showing them stuff on the screen, sketching out things on a piece of paper and being able to look into their eyes to check understanding.
Any ideas? We have no video conferencing (I know - how mad is that with 5 far flung sites?), we do have teleconferencing which is used a little.
Maybe I just have to accept that this is how things are done now and put up with it in exchange for the monthly fee? The moneys quite good and I only have to do about 39hrs/week despite being on a day rate. The local folks are friendly and sociable.
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