So frustrated with Onshore/Offshore

[xux42]

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.

[xux42]

Update

Just after I posted we had a teleconference.
It was OK, better than email, but it still lacked the non-verbal element. A few issues were cleared up and there was improved understanding of where and why the Indian Developers are struggling.
Oh & I asked around and apparently there is video conferencing between the UK sites, but not everyone has been told

[SimonMac]

Why not use Skype? Its what we use here, almost everyone uses a laptop so all have webcam's installed

[TheFaQQer]

Why not use Skype? Its what we use here, almost everyone uses a laptop so all have webcam's installed

ClientCo has their own web conferencing stuff, which when I connect to, it rings me. If I have problems, the I use Skype to dial into the conference.

I don't need to see them, and don't want them watching me, since I normally only listen to half of what is going on, while surfing on here at the same time.

Good thing of being in GMT is that the calls are all convenient for me - very early start for the Americans, late night for the Indians, just before my siesta for me

[xux42]

Skype?

Why not use Skype? Its what we use here, almost everyone uses a laptop so all have webcam's installed

Well we have 8 yr old desktops running xpsp3 and office 2003 and a network that makes accessing the primary server similar in speed and reliability to browsing a website hosted on a crappy old pentium in some blokes bedroom.

Also I was told not to bother asking for a mainframe userid for access to 2 of the source applications - it would take security 3/4 months to respond and they'd probably say no.

But what the hell, the desktop guys are quite helpful in spite of their puny budget so no harm in asking for Skype I suppose

[d000hg]

What about an online whiteboard tool... so you can do audio and still do diagrams, IM them links and so on?

[Freamon]

Also I was told not to bother asking for a mainframe userid for access to 2 of the source applications - it would take security 3/4 months to respond and they'd probably say no.

You could ask for data extracts instead, might be easier?

[Freamon]

I've been on projects which have been attempting to develop highly complex solutions via an offshore model. We had project managers onshore and a team of dozens offshore. The communication problems were so bad, we just picked the best 20% of the offshore guys and brought them onshore for 6 months. That 20% onshore were twice as productive as the whole offshore team had been beforehand.