Highlights
Testimonials
"Freelancerchina Team is very professionaland helpful.With it's assistance,we certainly accom plished several projects and benefited from them."
--Alan Tan, Founder & Director,
Intellego Solutions Sdn Bhd
Two-year Offshore Cooperation with a US Client
The client
The client has his own corporate offices , Flagship stores and Internet Call center, support the most unique Jewelry available anywhere in the world.
Project introduction
The system was based on php before, the Client want to change it to java. It includes many modules, ERP, CRM, E-Business/E-Commerce, SCM, etc. (TOP Java developers for full time needed)
Business model
ODC
Approach
1. Finding the suitable developers searched through our members.
2. Signing the contract.
3. Beginning work together.
Customer assigns the task to us per day, and then, we start to work and deliver the final work of the day to the customers on time. And so it goes.
How to keep sustainable passion of offshore team
Usually, long term cooperation with offshore team, especially the ones which are over a year, may suffer from lower and lower productivity because of less enthusiasm. Because their well planning, high productivity and timely adjustment, the team doesn't have to suffer endless overtime work, no need to spurt during most of the time. In addition, tasks are picked by engineers voluntarily according to their interest and capability. Daily work isn't sterile any more. The client becomes their partner to achieve each goal together. And the partnership becomes a virtuous circle which benefits both parties eventually.
How to ensure communication effectiveness - Response frequency
Offshore team working may have serious efficiency problem due to poor response frequency. In this particular case, when any of the following happens, the offshore engineers will try to let the client know immediately, e.g. technical problem can't be solved completely, primary estimation is proven to be inaccurate, original plan can't be completed in time, multiple design choices are available. It is not an hour later, not at the end of the day, not waiting for the next routine meeting, but immediately even the client may response days after that. Because the team members understand that honesty is the basis of long term cooperation. In-time adjustment on task priority and development plan is very meaningful to the client's business.
How to occupy less time and energy of the client
In the first half year cooperation, tasks are assigned with clarified iteration plan, design approach, etc. During this period, the client spends quite some time and energy on daily work of offshore team. Along with productivity enhancement of the team, mutual trust becomes to be built. Healthy collaboration atmosphere leaves the team a great space of creativeness and innovation. It facilitates many helpful suggestions of using latest technology and design mode in a long run. Acceptance is never a problem at all. Furthermore, the client frees up his hands from offshore team and focuses more on critical issues locally.
How to ensure communication effectiveness - Language barrier
Honestly, English of the very first engineer in this cooperation isn't good enough. On the other hand, instant message tool is prohibited in the client's company. With limited understanding of the system, plenty of communication between offshore engineer and the client is required at that time. Very possibly, it could have been a communication barrier from the very beginning.
Both sides manage to conquer the difficulty by their own ways. The client tries to use tens of emails a day to keep the bandwidth of communication. The offshore engineer uses as much screen shots as he can to illustrate instead of language description. Go2meeting is used a lot to demonstrate complicated problems when screen shot doesn't work. With sufficient interactivity, a lot of things come to be easy, such as visibility of working process, efficiency enhancement, etc.