One of the most difficult questions facing companies today is "How to Choose the Right Distributed Agile Partner?" After all, each and every project needs good people who are totally committed to Agile as this methodology is key to successful outcomes. Because agile outsourcing to offshore destinations is a new business experience for most companies, it can be quite difficult to outsource efficiently and effectively. Thus, here are a series of tips that will help you select the right partner, and avoid any potential pitfalls that you may encounter in this process.
Make sure your partner is using Scrum
It is important to ensure that the agile outsourcing partner is successfully using Scrum. Jeff Sutherland, Ph.D., the Chairman of the Scrum Training Institute, points out that his former company outsourced to a waterfall team in India. After almost two years of collecting data, he discovered that the Boston Scrum team was ten times faster than the India waterfall team. "We sent two million dollars worth of software to India, and we had to pay six million dollars to get it back," he says. "So, we suffered a four million dollar loss."
"Before selecting a distributed agile partner, make sure an experienced individual or an agile coach interviews the potential partner," says Michael Spayd, the President of Collective Edge Consulting in Boulder, Colorado. "A company needs someone who can ask probing questions - to see if the outsourcing partner truly understands what agile really is and how it works."
Make sure that the outsourcing company is implementing agile well.
According to Dr. Sutherland, the Netherlands-based company, Xebia, is a prime example of a company that uses Scrum well. In fact, the company has excellent data to show that all their projects that were jointly completed with their subsidiary in India have excellent results. In fact, the India Scrum team can demonstrate velocity and production by showing how many features it is building every month. Xebia also has data to indicate that its outsourced Scrum team is five times faster than the Waterfall teams on the same significant project. Currently, Xebia has four teams in the Netherlands and four teams in India.
"Ask to see agile artifacts such as the teams" burn down chart," adds Spayd. "It's a simple thing that most agile teams do to show an estimation of what they are going to do at the beginning of the iteration (sprint) and here is how it burned down every day. This is not quality data, but its evidence of how the team is really working."
Hire an onsite coordinator
Spayd recommends that a company should ask the outsourcing distributive partner to provide an onsite coordinator who actually sits in your location. "This is important because it allows more integration between the teams."
Begin by having the teams work together
When you start a Scrum pilot project with an outsourcing partner, it is important to have the teams work together at first for a two week to four week period. Once the team can demonstrate that it is working at a good pace, let the outsourcing team return to its own country. However, it is important to make sure that the velocity stays the same or rises when the teams are separated.
Keep no more than seven people on each team
Good industry data indicates that if a company places more than seven people on a team, it actually takes longer to complete the project. The main reason for this situation occurring is due to communication problems. "Look at the interactions you would need between people. Historically, computer science data shows that if you add more people to a large project, the productivity for the project goes down due to the communication effect," points out Dr. Sutherland.
