[kcmarshall]

I don't think you can over-emphasize the challenges in communication with off-shore teams. I have worked with several in corporate IT and just reaching a minimal baseline of understanding has proven difficult.

Some of this is basic talking and listening; phone conferences will suck! Think about your typical (dysfunctional) phone conf and then slash the quality of the phone line/Skype connection. Add in the variable accents of the offshore team. Their English is 1000% better than my command of their language: if I can't understand what they say and everything has to be repeated or translated by a co-worker, meetings slow to a crawl.

You will run into cultural differences in communication as well. The off shore folks want to do your work and they have the can-do attitude of most IT workers. They may indicate understanding when that isn't really the case. They aren't going to be able to casually wander by your desk and raise questions later so you are more likely to get stuck with their assumptions. This has happened even when we have brought off-shore developers to our offices for face to face meetings.

Finally, I have found that we are often unprepared to send work to a developer in a coherent manner. That will lead to rework, increased cost and even more communication overhead as you painfully hammer out your actual requirements.

[Pxtl]

I'm always confused why companies don't invest more in better teleconferencing tech. I mean, for a small fraction of the money being saved with offshore work you could have a meeting room full of screens and networked whiteboards and wearable high-quality mics and wall-mounted cameras and crystal-clear VOIP and whatnot, to put you "in the room" with your counterparts. None of this technology is science fiction.

But yeah, the inability to extract the words "I don't understand" or "I don't know" from foreign workers drives me utterly batty.

[jacquesm]

> But yeah, the inability to extract the words "I don't understand" or "I don't know" from foreign workers drives me utterly batty.

That's a cultural thing, and you're doing it wrong if you are trying to extract admissions out of people. That's the totally counter-productive approach. I understand that from a 'western' background admitting to failure, a lack of knowledge or even downright incompetence does not have to be a problem but in other cultures this can be a near impossibility.

I would like to suggest a different approach. Assume the "I don't know" or "I don't understand". Simply go over the thing for your understanding. This will take care of the problem in an elegant and face-saving way without having to torture co-workers.

[Pxtl]

I know, it's just hard. I hate dealing with an open loop - I have no feedback whether I'm explaining too much or too little.

[jacquesm]

You could ask for a re-telling, that will give you the closed loop. Just ask someone to explain the concept to you rather than the other way around.

[JoeAltmaier]

In fact, Sococo (I work here) is a work collaboration tool; its developed in part by an Engineer from the Ukraine. Another hurdle not mentioned in the article: on day in our morning mtg (his evening mtg) he said "I have to go; we're having a revolution today". Apparently his apartment overlooked that square with all the burned couches and embattled soldiers. So, no contact with him for a few days.

Great guy, don't get me wrong! But there's lots of hurdles to an overseas relationship.

[Pxtl]

That's not exactly an everyday event outside of certain worst-case-scenario African countries.

Disasters happen everywhere, including home. An ice storm could knock out your power for a week, or a hurricane or an earthquake depending on where you live.

[notacoward]

Many offshore teams don't have anywhere to put that teleconferencing equipment. They're often totally slammed for space as it is, they have relatively poor IP connectivity, sometimes they don't even have reliable power. So the cost is really the equipment plus the infrastructure upgrades, to solve only one part of the problem. It might still be worth it, but it's not a slam-dunk by any means.

[jacquesm]

And that assumes overlap between office hours.

[Pxtl]

I know that one. I work with a data-collection team in the Philippines. Lots of after-work Skype calls.

There is an upside - anything I can fix and deploy for them during my work-day is effectively zero-downtime for them.

[retrogradeMT]

I have used an offshore developer to help with some specific projects on my startup that is entering our friends and family launch this week. My experience has been fantastic.

I learned to code last fall and consider myself to be a semi-technical founder (php - laravel, jquery). I live in a small town in Montana and I knew I could not complete my MVP entirely by myself. With nearly no developers in my town I knew I would be working with someone over the internet to complete some of the project features.

I talked with roughly 10 freelance developers (half in U.S, one in Denmark, one in Belgium and a few in India).

I chose one of the developers in India because he seemed like the most capable of the group and immediately understood the project. He has been fantastic to work with and taken "ownership" in the project. I wouldn't hesitate to hire him full time if the project gains steam and he was willing to move to the U.S.

A couple of things to note: I would have much rather had an in house developer, but that just wasn't an option in my rural location. Also, my project is a marketplace of sorts, so it isn't a very complicated project from a coding standpoint. Going into this project with no sense of what I was after or how it would get done would have been a horrible idea, regardless of where the developer was located.

I had the offshore developer work on very specific modules that were organized through a shared trello board. Before I talked with him, I knew exactly what I wanted him to work on and the timeline for each project. He works some odd hours, so our usual schedule of talking was around 10am - noon and 9pm - 11pm.

He spent about 110 hours total on the project.

[Metaphysical]

Would you be willing to talk about your experience in finding, vetting, and then doing project management with your freelance developer?

My questions, specifically due to common complaints:

Where did you find the 10 leads? What were your criteria?

How did you, as a semi-technical cofounder, interview/approve him?

How do you guys work together regularly?

Finally, if you're willing to share, what's the rate at which he is employed?

[retrogradeMT]

Sure, no problem. hit me up at dustin @ contractorsherpa . com and we can figure out a time to talk.

[prawks]

I think looking for an offshore developer is a bit different than looking for an offshore team. You likely have a more intimate relationship with your developer than someone contracting out to a team does with each of that team's members. You also talk directly with him, rather than through an intermediate team leader.

Just something to consider, these are all different cases, and as with anything it's never a one-size-fits-all.

[prawks]

This has been my experience as well, very well summarized.

Communication is huge in technical organizations, and small stumbling blocks like accents over shoddy conference line quality can have long-lasting impacts when (as you've stated) incorrect assumptions are solidified in implementations. In a lean atmosphere those can be often be corrected but it's costly. When you're looking to offshore you're looking to save money and it's not always easy justifying re-writes purely from a monetary standpoint.

[syntern]

Working with offshore teams is no different than working with <anything new that you haven't done before>. You need to learn it. It is not the same as working with an in-house team. Different tradeoffs, gotchas and benefits.

[adamc]

Like what? Seriously, if you have experience with this, giving more detail would be appreciated.