One of the major development costs is communication overhead

Post #72,867 by ben_tilly 1/6/03 8:35:36 AM Reply	One of the major development costs is communication overhead I don't care who you are. If your sleep cycle is off by a half-day from the busy users that you need to get requirements and feedback from, you are going to take longer and take more of that user's time to finish the job than someone halfway competent who is local. Whether this dynamic is a key arbitrator of costs depends on what you're task is. But a lot of companies that try to save costs by exporting IT work overseas only succeed in digging themselves into a money and development pit. Of course this is hardly the only money and develpment pit people dig for themselves. Oddly enough, though, many of the others are also related to communication overhead. See The Mythical Man-Month for a discussion of some of them... Cheers, Ben "Career politicians are inherently untrustworthy; if it spends its life buzzing around the outhouse, it\ufffds probably a fly." - [link\|http://www.nationalinterest.org/issues/58/Mead.html\|Walter Mead]
Post #72,879 by bluke 1/6/03 10:05:49 AM 1/6/03 10:22:27 AM Reply	Believe me I know ... It is not easy coordinating meetings between Israel (GMT +2), India (GMT +5.5) and California (GMT -8). There is no question that it requires alot of coordination and procedures. However, I have found that if both sides are willing to make the effort not only can it work, but you get the advantages of people working almost around the clock. It clearly also depends on the kind of work that you do. If you are writing user business applications, it makes alot of sense for the development team to be near the users and have alot of interaction with them. My team, does system level/middleware type work which doesn't require nearly as much user interaction. This kind of work can be done in a remote location much easier. Edited by bluke Jan. 6, 2003, 10:22:27 AM EST Expand All History
Post #72,973 by ben_tilly 1/6/03 2:47:59 PM Reply	Sounds like we are on the same page then I just think that it is a far bigger issue than most PHBs realize. That said, there are three fundamental issues. The first is the principle of relative advantage. If some kinds of development can be done more easily locally than remotely, and some more easily remotely than locally, then economic theory predicts that we are both better off in the long run by trading - no matter what our relative absolute costs are. The second issue is that that economic theory ignores the inevitable pain of dislocations. While on the whole we are all better, internally on our side there will be winners and losers - and it sucks to be a loser. The third issue is that a large part of the US lifestyle probably is unsustainable long-term. The coming acceptance of this fact is not something to look forward to... Cheers, Ben "Career politicians are inherently untrustworthy; if it spends its life buzzing around the outhouse, it\ufffds probably a fly." - [link\|http://www.nationalinterest.org/issues/58/Mead.html\|Walter Mead]

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