[markkoberlein]

I have worked with multiple Indian groups on projects while working full time at different companies and I also have some experience outsourcing tasks for my startup through Elance.

Here are my rules with for working with Indian companies:

1. Never outsource the whole project or even a majority of it. I've seen companies do this because it's cheaper than hiring a staff of full time in-house developers. The projects usually fail.

2. Never ask them to do a task that you wouldn't know how to do yourself. You should never outsource a key piece of technology just because you don't know how to do it. You should only outsource something if they will get it done faster than you can or you want to work on something else. You will still have to review and test every line of their code to keep the quality up.

3. Expect communication issues. From my experience, Indian consulting firms try to communicate the best they can but you do have to stay on top of them.

4. They are much better at coding than they are at design. I've always been happy with the code they produce but not with their graphic design abilities. Never leave the UI design up to them.

I'm a single founder of a startup and the only way that I'm going to get my product off the ground in 30 to 60 days on a shoe-string budget is to outsource pieces of it. If you want to keep up with my progress then go to http://sqlmover.com to sign up for the private beta that is going to be launching next month.

[netcan]

Re # 4. My experience is exactly the opposite.

I guess there needs to be a #5 - Outsourcing is a competency in itself and can be hard. People have different experiences and offer conflicting advice. If you do it often, you will find ways of doing it better. If you just need to outsource something once, it may not be worth the learning curve or risk.

[SamAtt]

I agree with your points but wanted to put special attention on 1 & 2 because I've found those to be the most important in my own experience.

Generally what I do is to make a class diagram and then hand it to an outsourced coder to create. That way there's no question of what is supposed to go in and what is supposed to come out and I can test it easily. Plus that way allows me to keep track of which pieces I outsourced so even if I get a bad coder who writes inefficient code I can go back at a later date and correct his work.