Managing Information Technology

Chapter 9 • Methodologies for Custom Software Development 381

last meeting, what is to be done before the next

meeting, and issues that might impede progress.

• Scrum of Scrum meetingThe team SMs gather for
  short (“stand up”) daily meetings and monthly for
  longer meetings to review coordination between
  teams and interteam issues.


• Sprint planning meetingEach team meets monthly (for
  up to a day in length) to allocate work units in the proj-
  ect backlog to team members. Each work unit is prior-
  itized, and based on these priorities, interdependences,
  and estimated work times, tasks are scheduled and as-
  signed so they can be completed over the next month.


• Sprint review meetingThis team meeting reviews (in
  a meeting that might last up to a day) accomplish-
  ments of the monthly work plan, identifies areas for
  improvement, and highlights what has gone well. In
  some instance, this meeting becomes a “products
  fair” to which members from other teams, clients, and
  IT support staff (e.g., from quality assurance and data
  administration) are invited to see intermediate results.

Additional meetings or presentations are required to share
project results with clients.
These frequent and varied meetings facilitate commu-
nication and sharing of ideas and provide peer pressure to
show real progress. Quality assurance (QA) is built into each
team by including a QA staff member on each team. The
role of SM is key and must be carefully staffed. Work prod-
ucts are considered the output of the team. Hence, the team
nature of Scrum tends to foster team ownership and sharing
of ideas and solutions to problems among team members.

Managing Software Projects Using Outsourced Staff

Although hiring on-site contractors to help with custom
software projects has been a widespread practice for
decades, today there is a renewed focus on keeping down the
costs of software development by outsourcing portions of
the project to off-site workers, especially offshore workers
in a different, less-expensive labor market. Other advantages
of using external resources to assist or substitute for internal
staff for custom development work are to make use of tech-
nical expertise not available in-house (some contractors spe-
cialize in certain technologies or application areas), to hire
capacity above a baseline for the amount of development
work the organization can justify at any given time, to free
up internal staff to work on more strategic or proprietary
projects that must be kept in-house, and to be able to com-
plete the project more quickly (due to when internal staff or
expertise is available). Some organizations have actually
outsourced their whole systems development group; this
usually occurs when the organization feels its mission does

not include managing information systems development.

Some small organizations may feel they cannot afford to re-

tain quality IT development staff.

Off-site outsourcing can involve contracting with com-

panies within the same country or region (“onshore”) or not

(“offshore”). Offshore outsourcing is often driven by price

because labor costs have traditionally been 40 to 60 percent

less by offshoring work to systems development groups in

India, Eastern Europe, or Asia. As will be discussed in more

detail in Chapter 13, some significant risks of offshore out-

sourcing are loss of some control (or at least control is more

difficult due to time zone differences), language and cultural

barriers, and threats of piracy of intellectual property.

According to Poria (2004), the offshore alternative is likely a

very favorable option when the following conditions exist:

• The system requirements can be well-defined and
  will remain relatively stable over the project.


• Time is of the essence and 24/7 availability of re-
  sources to work on the project is advantageous.


• The cost of the project (or program) is an important
  consideration.

Research by Holmström et al. (2006) suggests that

the agile methods of Scrum and eXtreme Programming are

useful in overcoming some of the risks of offshore soft-

ware development projects. These methods, with their ex-

plicit communication and coordination mechanisms, can

reduce the negative effects of distance between team mem-

bers. Guidelines for effectively managing the day-to-day

interactions with an off-site outsourcer have also been de-

veloped. For example, some of the key guidelines pub-

lished by a Sourcing Interests Group (and summarized in

McNurlin and Sprague, 2004) and by Rottman and Lacity

(2004) are as follows:

Manage expectations, not staffThe outsourcer’s staff

is not under the direct control of the client company

nor are their rewards tied to those of the client, so a

facilitative mode of working is best in which the

focus is on the outcomes.

Take explicit actions to integrate the off-site workers

Managing projects across workgroups requires more

formality, such as explicit, agreed-upon outcomes and

measures. In-house staff might even benefit from mov-

ing to the outsourcer’s firm in order to work side by side

with them and learn how they work together internally.

Communicate frequentlyManagers responsible for

the relationship with the outsourcers need to keep

the lines of communication open.

Abandoning informal ways may result in increased

rigorBecause of their business model, a service