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Take Java offshore

Should your organization outsource Java development overseas?

By Loren Siebert, JavaWorld.com, 07/20/01

Page 3 of 7

Experienced development teams

Many offshore development companies emphasize more than just QA, however, in that they recognize the importance of software methodologies and the processes behind them. While most suppliers will have their own preferred methodology that has evolved over time, an outsourced project team can adapt to your desired process, whether a brand name like Rational Unified Process or your own in-house approach. Such a structured focus on software development carries over into areas such as training. Suppliers try to keep some small percentage of their engineering workforce on the sidelines to act as a buffer against spikes in demand for personnel, and whenever these engineers are not assigned to a client project, they are learning the latest J2EE (Java 2, Enterprise Edition) technologies, applying them to internal projects, and then sharing what they learn with the rest of the organization. This allows the supplier's workforce to have useful experience across a significant portion of the ever-expanding Java platform.

Your Java project may require only five engineers, but you'll get the collective experience of the dozens or hundreds of engineers across the company. This availability of people trained in leading-edge Java technologies is one reason offshore services firms are being contracted to develop sophisticated new Java-based systems, rather than merely maintain legacy C++ and Cobol systems as in the past. Some outsourcing suppliers have found that their entire workforce has migrated from C++ projects to Java projects in the space of one or two years. Completing high-profile projects using some of Java's more advanced APIs goes a long way for a supplier's credibility, to the point where they might hesitate to accept new C++ projects.

Give the turnover headache to someone else

Sidelined engineers also receive training by being assigned to various client projects as the engineering equivalent of an understudy. An often undervalued result of this overlap is that attrition tends to be managed gracefully. In-house projects can be delayed or even derailed when Java engineers move on to other projects or just jump ship with little notice, a delay largely due to the reluctance of management to factor attrition into the project schedule. Even the best outsourcing firms realize they cannot avoid attrition, especially with so many young Java engineers wishing to move to America once they have a successful project under their belts. As a result, many overseas firms embrace attrition, expecting it as a natural part of the software development process. The consequence of this expectation: projects tend to be well documented from the outset, and when the inevitable does occur, a clued-in replacement stands ready to carry on. Over the course of a year, your project team may experience 100 percent turnover or more, and yet continue to gain momentum as though they had been together all along. This resilience actually increases as your relationship with the supplier grows over time, so that the more you use them, the more you want to use them.

 

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