Researchers from the University of Nottingham and from the Lashkarev Institute of Semiconductor Physics in the Ukraine, have produced a new type of acoustic laser device called a Saser. It’s a sonic equivalent to the laser and produces an intense beam of uniform sound waves on a nano scale. In addition to having the paper on their research published in the Physics Journal, the team has also won a grant of £636,000 from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council to develop Saser technology over the next four years. For more details.
Can you do Agile development with an Outsourced Team?
May 31st, 2009The quick answer is of course yes! Without really thinking about it we can answer this way because anything is possible, you just have to determine if it makes economic or strategic sense to do it.
Over the next few weeks I want to explore this question further, but before I get in to that I want to pose another question regarding Agile.
According to the Agile Manifesto: Welcome changing requirements, even late in development. Agile processes harness change for the customer’s competitive advantage.
So to me this brings up a couple of questions:
1. Taking this principle in to account, are you still considered to be doing “Agile” development if right before the iteration is due new changes are requested thus pushing back the release date again? If you only release to production once every 6 or so months can you still be doing Agile development?
2. In that same vein, if you request to put off a change request until the next iteration, are you being “un-Agile”?
Another reminder that it doesn’t matter where the person is located in the same country as you or in another country
May 1st, 2009Short article from CIO.com, “IT Director Pleads Guilty to Deleting Organ Donation Records”, is another reminder that it doesn’t matter where the IT person is located, they could be located in your office, down the street or at the other side of the world, and still be capable of doing something to your data. Need to have a process in place, especially when terminating someone to shut down all access, but as well to periodically monitor for all access points for “unusual” activity.
Supposedly the latest on 10 Areas Ripe for Outsourcing…..
March 13th, 2009The latest in the list of supposedly new things which are ripe for outsourcing! Unfortunately absolutely nothing new on the list at all. The only good thing about the list is that it does now make a distinction between what areas should be done onshore and what can be done offshore. For example it does stress that parts of integration really need to be done onsite, which is very true. But otherwise a disappointing list.
Four Teams within Softjourn have been busy working on Developing an Application for Mobile Phones!
February 23rd, 2009Last week representatives from four groups, working on a Mobile Phone application, presented phase one of their results to an audience of Softjourn employees.
Softjourn management devised a contest to develop a mobile phone application, to further develop Softjourn’s skills in the mobile arena. Participation on a team was strictly voluntary and work was to take place only during off hours (This could include vacation time. One team member did take his vacation during this first phase of the contest, and then subsequently spent all of his time at the office anyway!).
The application: The application to be developed was a secure Address Book which would enable Smartphone owners to secure their private data and to enable them to set specific rules for different types of contacts. Specific features included:
Will we see an iPhone solution?
- Protected contacts, invisible without authentication,
- Use of a Nick Name instead of real personal info during calls or the receipt of text messages,
- Ability to manage profiles (silent, general, etc.) personally for individual contacts or groups,
- Setup the rules for incoming or outgoing calls and text messages for individual contacts or groups related to the following criteria:
Time period
Location of cell phone user
Calendar events
Protected calls and sms logs
For example if a husband always wanted to receive calls from his wife, even if the status on his phone was set to busy, those calls may go through, but calls from his bank may not go through, based on the profile of each contact. Not surprising, the idea for the application came from a real world need from Softjourn’s Director in Ukraine, Sergiy Fitsak.
Project Organization: Each team choose which OS they wished to work with: Google Android, Symbian, iPhone or Windows Mobile. Teams could consist of one or more persons depending on the interest in the operating system. Perhaps due to its newness, the Google Android team attracted 5 team members.
Project Phases: It was planned that the project would be run in at least two phases. Phase I ended after six weeks, at which time the teams were to report their status at that time, and define their next steps. Each of the team presentations and results were judged by a secret panel. The teams were judged on such criteria as, the level of effort to date – did they reach demo stage or not, how they presented the strengths and weaknesses of the particular operating system versus the competition, level of technical knowledge of how to develop on the particular OS, the ease of understanding their presentation by non-technical folks, and the outline for the next steps. All the teams did a great job but only one team could win this first phase and that winning team was the Google Android team! The Symbian team took the silver.
The Android winning team!
The next phase of the contest involves the development of a prototype solution. Will keep you posted on the status of this internal Softjourn project!
Offshore Outsourcing Ukraine – Eastern Europe
December 18th, 2008A recent article in computer weekly talked about the current top five outsourcing destinations. Normally I find these articles interesting, and would say that they at least provide some information. However, this time it didn’t take too long to find out that most of the links from this article were to articles that were written as long ago as eight years ago (in the case of the Philippines). The details supporting Bulgaria and the development of its IT sector were from 2004.
Book Review – “Multisourcing: “Moving Beyond Outsourcing to Achieve Growth and Agility”
November 30th, 2008Multisourcing is not necessarily a new term, but since it is appearing more and more in the media, I decided to check out the one book I could find on the topic on Amazon; Multisourcing:“ Moving Beyond Outsourcing to Achieve Growth and Agility, which was published already in 2006.
What did I understand from this book about the term, multisourcing? The author’s official definition of when a company is engaged in multisourcing is: An enterprise consciously and proactively acknowledges, plans and manages the interdependency of internal and external service providers. As an example: a company outsources to a service provider benefits and payroll processing (a common item to outsource), this service provider is dependent on IT infrastructure services provided by another provider, and perhaps a custom software application written and maintained by a third service provider (if the benefits and payroll service provider does not use their own software application, but yours). The data needed for use by benefits and payroll is provided via a data warehouse maintained by an internal business intelligence center but managed by internal resources in the finance department. Multisourcing is managing of this mix of internal and external service providers.
For more specific examples I also learned that a company is engaged in multisourcing when it:
- Has an office which centrally manages outsourcing engagements; everything from what should be outsourced or done internally, where it can be outsourced (onshore, offshore), what are the expected outcomes for each service, negotiates contracts, manages the vendors and so on., and you do not allow different departments or different persons within your organization to decide what to outsource on their own and how to manage the process on their own.
- Outsources (either internally or externally) more than one service or part of its business (it could be to the same provider).
- Manages outcomes and not how something is done.
- Puts some thought in to the best way to receive each of the services (HR, payroll, data network, customer support, etc.) needed to run your business.
- Manages the relationship between Service consumers, Enterprise, and Service Providers
So what is different about multisourcing? According to the authors it is in how multisourcing is managed. To give an illustration, the authors look at how products are typically outsourced versus how services are typically outsourced. Typically with the sourcing of manufacturing a company will specify the outcome to be achieved. For example, I want x number of this type of part and it must meet these specifications, but the buyer does not say to the sourcer how many persons need to be involved in making the product, how many lathes to use, how much energy needs to be expended, etc. (Well at least they do not do this if the provider is not exclusive to their company.) The buyer will leave the details up to the provider. But in services this does not always happen. I believe part of this is the nature of outsourcing services versus outsourcing products. Also typically the first stage of outsourcing for many companies is just seen as the movement or replacement of people from one location to another, so the buyer wants to say how things will be done exactly, they are not ready to give up that control. The authors are trying to get the readers to realize that giving up that level of control does not mean that you, as the buyer, do not get what you need, nor that you do not have to do any managing. You manage the outcome, i.e. what is the outcome that needs to be achieved when outsourcing customer support; clients need to be satisfied with the support services, client issues have to be closed, etc., but every detail of how that is done does not have to be dictated, and if you do dictate every detail you may be losing out on the enhancements and improvements that you could be achieving.
The author’s also put extra emphasis on outlining how to establish good governance and who should be involved with it. I liked the chart on pg. 125, which defined the competencies needed for managing multisourcing. It can be used for assessing your personnel who may be working in your sourcing management office or for assessing yourself as to what skill sets you need in order to be in sourcing management.
After reading this book, I am not certain that multisourcing is so different from the term strategic sourcing[1] which is also a very common term. Gartner defines strategic sourcing as “the dynamic delivery of internal and external, business or IT oriented resources and services to ensure that business objectives are met.” Perhaps it is true that when talking about strategic sourcing it is most often done so with reference to IT related services. That could be because these service areas have been fast growing in terms of outsourcing, or because these service areas are seen as ones where a buyer can receive enhancements from outsourcing and not just money savings (referred to by the authors as efficiency improvements). A service like payroll has been outsourced by companies for years and years, but it is usually not mentioned in books or articles referring to strategic sourcing because payroll is usually not seen as being a strategic area for a company. I believe what the authors are trying to get at is that multisourcing takes a broader look at all services that a company needs and determines how they should be delivered; whether that is internally or externally.
What I see as the main difference in reading this book versus reading a book on developing a sourcing strategy is that many of the books on strategic sourcing will typically revolve around one or two of the services that a business usually needs to have done in order for the business to be successful, such as: customer support, or software engineering or accounting. While this book on multisourcing focuses on looking at all of the different services that a business needs to have fulfilled and to think about the best what to have those services delivered; internally (domestic or offshore) or outsourced (domestic or offshore).
So does it pay to take a look at this book on Multisourcing? Overall the process that is defined in the book, how to evaluate the different services within your company and how to develop your sourcing plan is laid out well and if a company goes through it, they will end up with a good plan. If you do not yet have a plan on how to do that in your company, you can use the outline in this book which is defined over several chapters. Also if you are looking at developing a sourcing management operation, Chapter 4 is good for defining who to have involved in sourcing management and how to go about the process.
Next month I will be looking at a recently published book on Outsourcing: Outsourcing and Offshoirng of Professional Services “Business Optimization in a Global Economy“ by Amar Gupta
To take a look at the book reviewed here:
Multisouricng – Moving Beyond Outsourcing to Achieve Growth and Agility
Linda Cohen and Allie Young
2006 Gartner, Inc.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_sourcing
Outsourcing Today: What U.S. Corporations Expect from their Offshore Providers
October 29th, 2008On the 27th of October, Softjourn CEO, Emmy Gengler, participated on a panel discussion for Armenian technology company CEOs, the Deputy Minister of the Economy and his associates. Also participating were outsourcing sourcing providers and vendors from Mexico and Poland.
“It was a pleasure to meet everyone and I am very happy to see the growth of the software exports market in Armenia and the excitement of the outsourcing and software vendors” said Emmy.
The event was coordinated by Michelle Messina - mmessina@explorainternational.com of Explora International. Explora International is focused on assisting international companies to enter the US market.
Softjourn sponsorship of events for Start-ups via Right Hand Partners
October 18th, 2008Softjourn is proud to be sponsoring the next Visibility Conference organized by Right Hand Partners, and to be held on Friday November 7th. If you are looking for financing and looking for a better way to talk with Venture Capitalists about your product, Right Hand Partner’s Visibility Conference may be the way to do it. MORE INFORMATION
Gallery of Funds Event – If you are an entrepreneur and wish to find out more about what a Venture Capitalist really thinks, the best thing to do is ask them. At the next Gallery of Funds Event sponsored by Softjourn, you will be able to do that. Tom Dennedy, GP at Artiman Ventures and Brendon Kim, GP at Altos Ventures, both seed stage funds will be answering your questions. MORE INFO
Second Generation Outsourcing
September 13th, 2008There has been alot made of what is called “Second Generation Outsourcing”. For purposes of this discussion, I will use the definition set by the vendor which claims to have pioneered “Second Generation Outsourcing (SGO)”, Anantara Solutions.
In look at how they define “Second Generation Outsourcing”; combining business consulting and IT services. I would like to just ask the question, “How does this differ from the services that for example, IBM, has been providing for years? They used a huge network of specialized vendors to assist in providing services to their clients all of the world. Is this SGO model really any different?