One, two, and four aspects of Software Development Outsourcing Management"

During the entire lifecycle of informatization, enterprises are increasingly dependent on external suppliers. From Requirement Analysis to System Selection, to project implementation and even the final operation and maintenance, IT suppliers are always in the same shape as enterprises. Especially under the guidance of core competitiveness theory, "outsourcing parts that cannot directly create value, including IT" has become the choice of many enterprises, and external suppliers have gradually become the continuation of IT management. However, enterprises have to face the challenges brought about by supplier selection, evaluation, and management.
　　
Among the many IT outsourcing services, software development outsourcing is the one with the most contact and the most widely used in the process of enterprise informatization construction, the problems that occur during the construction of information systems are also the biggest headache for enterprises. The CIO of an enterprise once complained that our cooperation with the software outsourcers is like a "roller coaster ", at the beginning of contact, many software companies agreed to any of our needs. Once the agreement was signed, many problems would arise. Today, this cannot be done, and we will postpone it tomorrow, we did not really want to come up with anything at full cost. After several rounds, the two sides turned from trust to mutual hatred, or even public court. So how can we choose a good software outsourcers and how can we effectively manage the relationships between the two parties? A recent discussion with Mr. Wang Bo, consultant of North da Soft Information Technology Co., Ltd., gave me more insights on this issue.

Select four criteria for outbound traffic

As the saying goes, "Everything starts hard." A good start is half the success. To do software outsourcing, the first challenge is the choice of external providers. Some experts have concluded that the root cause of 80% of IT project failures lies in the fact that bidding and selection are not well done, and their importance is evident.

Mr. Wang believes that, unlike the design and production of physical products, outsourcing management of software development projects has the following two notable features: 1) the procurement target of outsourcing management of software development is not an item, but a human resource, or a mental labor result of people with technical capabilities. 2) Outsourcing Management of software development is a management alternative technology, the results of management are the results of the project. Unlike traditional projects, the results of the project are obtained through the procurement-> processing process.

Therefore, Mr. Wang suggested that, as the information owner of an enterprise, when selecting the outsourcers, he must combine the above features of the software development project and focus on the following aspects:

1) whether the company has mature and standardized software development project management specifications. First, let's take a look at the quality certifications (for example, cmme and ISO9000) that the development enterprises have passed, and check whether the projects currently being developed by the enterprises strictly implement these specifications, enterprises that spend money to buy certificates should be avoided.

2) successful cases of the company in the industry. At present, many outsourcing enterprises have stood the test of the market and stand out among them. They should pay attention to them as much as possible during their selection.

3) The company must provide resumes of core development teams. It depends on the development experience of this team. Otherwise, the development company may be well known, but for projects to be outsourced, development enterprises may not be able to provide enough human resources.

4) reasonable quotation plans. The ability to provide mature development teams and standardized development processes means that the cost of project development must be higher than those of development teams that rely only on a few experts, project outsourcing only selects the right company rather than the cheap companies. Otherwise, the project failure rate will increase a lot. If the project fails, for the company, it will lose a lot of opportunity costs.

"One center and two basic points" of external region Management"

Choosing a good outsourcer does not mean you can rest assured. In fact, this is only the first step of the long journey, and you are still faced with the challenge of managing outsourcers, which is even more difficult than selecting an outsourcer. Mr. Wang believes that to live in harmony with the outsourcers, we must adhere to the "One center and two basic points ".

1. Enterprise system construction is the center of external region Management

"To manage outsourcing, we must first improve our management system, which is the core of Outsourcing Management ." Mr. Wang's point of view carries the philosophical taste of "first-to-be", which clearly states the importance of building an enterprise's own system.

For our informatization construction, the system is one of the important factors that determine success or failure. At present, many organizations have systems, software, and even technologies and equipment that are the same as their international competitors. Therefore, our overall application level is not low in terms of technical maturity and advancement, but why is there no other party doing well? In fact, the reason is very simple. Most of our enterprises have not yet established corresponding systems and mechanisms, and most of them are maintained by "governance by people". A typical example is that they always emphasize "top-notch projects ", if the top leaders attach importance to them, they can do well. If they do not pay attention to them, they will be difficult to achieve satisfactory results. This is a manifestation of a lack of systems.

System Construction is equally important in Software Outsourcing Management. Wang Bo believes that it is necessary for enterprises to establish a standardized development Outsourcing Management System for their own development project outsourcing management, so as to ensure that the quality of the project in the informatization construction process will not be greatly affected by personnel changes, this not only guarantees the success of outsourcing management, but also serves as the foundation for long-term informatization construction.

Specifically, in the field of software development outsourcing, the construction method of management specifications can be referred to in various process domains of cmmi3 (project planning, demand management, change and configuration management, project tracking and control, and quality management, to improve the process and system, you must first standardize to know how to ask others.

2. "two basic points" of Software Outsourcing Management"

Wang believes that outsourcing management is important to adhere to the "two basic points", that is, Party A leads the demand and strengthens Process Control. Only by doing so can outsourcing be successful.

The first basic point: Party A must always take the lead in business needs

For the informatization construction of enterprises, the final result of software development is to solidify the business of enterprises in the form of software. Therefore, the content source of software development is the business needs of enterprises, enterprises must be clear about which businesses should be computer-based. Many enterprises take it for granted that, since I gave the project package to professional software developers, my business should be analyzed by them. In fact, there is a great risk in doing so. Because developers are not familiar with the business characteristics of an enterprise, it is difficult to judge whether the business needs are reasonable and whether the processing process of a certain business is optimal. The most familiar business is the enterprise's own.

Many software development projects fail due to demand changes, but in a strict sense, the root cause of demand changes is that most of the requirements are organized by developers who do not understand the business, the business personnel did not actually participate. To avoid this risk, Mr. Wang believes that the Web technology can be used in the demand analysis phase. First, the functional model of the business needs can be made into a static html model, A system prototype should be provided to the business personnel of the enterprise for review as soon as possible, so that they can determine whether these functions are suitable, so as to avoid a large gap between the final developed products and users' ideas.

Second Basic point: strengthen project Process Control

Software development is a kind of intellectual creation activity. For this type of activity, processes are required to control the quality of the activity. Mr. Wang Bo has an image metaphor: there is no error in the general direction in the shaking process when he shakes a whip, however, the direction of each section is different from that of the final section. This is also true for project management with process control. There may be some errors in each stage, but as long as you use the process to control it, the final effect and your final direction will not have much difference.

The quality of a project controlled by a process also complies with this principle. The software development process is composed of a series of small processes (requirement analysis, design, coding, testing, and launch ), in each stage of the development process, we need to set some quality standards for testing. There may be some errors in each stage. However, if the quality of each stage meets the standards required by the project, the final quality of the project will not be too different from the target.