Today at the 4Developers conference in Poznan, Poland, I presented the audience my concern about the existing gap in between client’s need and the reality of the software developers. For some reason we seem not to manage to understand each other well enough. Too many projects do not deliver the result the client was hoping for. Honestly, it’s no longer a question whether or not this gap has to be closed. We just have to do it to make software more successful and clients more happy. But who’s responsible to bridge the gap? In my opinion the software developers. I will try to explain why. [Picture source: Allaboutjazz.com]

Software projects fail too often

Based on many data sources and publications we can only conclude software projects “fail” too often, meaning:

• The project is not delivered on time
• The project is not delivered within budget
• The project is not offering the requested/promised functionality

A combination of the above is happening as well of course.

It’s not easy to improve but we just have to

Neither I’m going to claim I know best how to solve the issue. Honestly I’m learning every day of the mistakes we are making ourselves. As every other software company we have both successful and improvable projects.

Nor will I tell you it’s easy to bridge the gap in between clients/users and software developers. These are people with a different background, different interests and a different focus. Both communicate, think and express themselves totally differently. You could say clients are from Mars and software developers from Venus.

But one thing is for sure. We need to bridge this gap. Business will have to talk together with IT, it should neither be a continuous fight nor competition.

Are we willing to work together as partners?

To realize excellent software solutions a developer will need very well specified requests. Based on a quick poll among the audience and my own experience I conclude too often clients are just not able to really specify their needs. At least not in terms a developer will understand.

I don’t blame them because I believe it’s almost impossible to fully define your needs in such a way that everybody will understand it.

We will have to find another way of communicating the client’s needs. At it’s best developers are defining the needs together with the client. Several “best practice” or “Agile” methods are available to support this process.

It’s important that we define what the software application has to do in terms the business understands. When using Business Driven Development it would look like this:

Discussing the needs in this way will also lead to all kind of usefull user stories which will make the developers understand the needs better. Besides discussion will lead to more creative ideas! Together you can prioritize them. While prioritizing it will also become clear that currently too many useless features are being developed. By setting the right priorities together you can also safe a lot of money.

The next step would be to start prototyping. You can do this by means of wireframes, mockups, draft GUI’s etc. The aim is to show the client/user as soon as possible what it’s all going to look like. The instant user feedback will show the developers whether or not they are still on the right track. Communication is king in this phase. Developers should be willing to except changes in business priorities during the development. A user will better understand what he really needs once he sees the first prototypes and working releases.

Honestly, the method doesn’t matter, because it’s just a method. If the willingness to improve is there from both sides and when they invest time and effort in defining the project you can choose any method that suits you best. The cooperation as partners will be the biggest gain, period!

Developers will have to start this change

Developers their life will become a lot easier if they understand the client’s needs better. Therefore, they should make the first step.

And why wouldn’t you? Just imagine that you won’t have to fix “bugs” anymore and that the amount of unexpected change requests drops? How would that feel? I know it’s scary, but please just give it a try. What can you loose? Add some funk and have more fun making better solutions, may be even the best solutions.

But this doesn’t mean it will be easy. Especially when clients think in the traditional model of sending a request and agreeing about a fixed priced, fixed date project. Both sides will have to trust each other. The business has to dare to share their ideas and needs. If it’s hard for your development team to achieve this interaction with your client just start working like this yourself. One of the team members could “act” like the client. A sales person, consultant or business analyst are in general best for this job.

We try to achieve this level of trust by having many (in)formal meetings at the start of the project. Having a drink and dinner together makes you start acting different. Several workshops together show the added value of such an investment.

If we don’t change the competition will overrule us

Having a nice and relaxed 9 to 5 (or more common in Poland an 8 to 4) job you might not be willing to bother about the above. But software doesn’t stop at 4 pm. Clients are depending on software solutions 24 hours a day. And business dynamics are hard to plan.

If you are willing to support the business better this will demand an additional investment. You will have to spend time together, probably you should learn more about the business. That will take time, after hours.

But if you don’t do this, the competition is waiting. In China and India there are many young, eager and clever software developers willing to take our jobs. Today the main issue for the client will be that it’s even harder to outsource the work to these countries. But sooner or later they will find out how to use these resources if we as Polish and European developers don’t manage to seduce our clients.

It’s not about methods, but about “funky” cooperation

Hopefully I managed to show we can not solve the current situation just by implementing a new “funky” method. There are more steps needed. I will summarize them:

1. Get to know each other: Business en IT will have to invite each other to share thoughts, to understand each other
2. Trust each other: The relationship in between Business en IT will have to be based on trust
3. Stimulate creativity: Business needs should be defined together
4. Make things understandable: Business needs have to be defined in an understandable way, as “user stories”
5. Set priorities, exclude waste: The business sets the priorities for the implementation of the features
6. Interact: Development should be more iterative and interactive based on prototyping
7. Communicate: During the development we have to communicate, communicate, communicate
8. Change is the norm: Developers have to be open to changes. Business needs will change over time

The above is a rough summary of today’s presentation at 4Developers in Poznan, Poland. Feel free to check the slides. I’m looking forward to your feedback, comments and opinions below. Thanks for your attention!

After my presentation @mesirii send me the following link where Martin Fowler and Dan North discuss bridging the gap as well.

Yesterday afternoon a new Dutch client arrived in Gdańsk. Just like many others also this client didn’t know what to expect. The image Dutch people have about Poland is still not too positive, biased by the media. The advantage is that it is rather easy to surprise them. A good combination of sightseeing and a productive day made we managed to impress our client.

Today we had a kick-off for a new and challenging web security project. We had to compete before with an Indian provider to win this project. Our well designed solution, Dutch background and the fact that Poland is rather close to Holland made he chose us.

Yesterday evening we visited Sopot, this evening the Gdańsk Old Town. In this way we managed to combine productivity with fun. The picture shows Długi Targ, the main square.

Last weeks we had several clients visiting our development location in Gdańsk, Poland. As many times before they proved the importance of personal meetings within an outsourcing relationship. Apart from the intensive business talks we were having a lot of fun together. And isn’t having fun one of the most important things in life?

In reality most outsourcing relationships are either rather formal, based on strict contracts, or more like project contract based deals. The first case mostly doesn’t leave much space for intensive informal relationships, the second one very often doesn’t allow both parties to invest into the relationship. In my opinion this is a real pity.

As mentioned our GOYELLO development locations are based in Poland. For our Western European clients Poland is for many reasons a great nearshoring location. You can read that in one of my posts on our GOYELLO blog. One of the advantages is the relatively short distance. This enables us to visit our client’s at their premises and may be even more important it’s rather easy for our clients to meet with us in Gdańsk. The client’s visits in general last for several days, long intensive and productive days. They enable the client to focus on the subject, without being disturbed all the time.

Traveling to Poland also includes some ‘magic’ for most visitors. Western European people don’t know what they can expect. That’s why most of them are very surprised when they see our office, meet our people and visit the beautiful Polish cities.

Last weeks we had several visitors again, both existing and new clients. And like always we were having a great time together. During intensive discussions and workshops we defined their needs, discussed possibilities and we were testing almost finished applications. In the evening we visited both Sopot and Gdańsk. Both beautiful, impressive cities, great places to relax, have a great dinner and more important to have intensive talks to get to know eachother better. In all cases this occured to be very useful again. Even hard discussions are a lot easier when you know and really understand the other. It makes that we realize what drives and bothers them. It enables us to serve our clients better.

Besides we just had a great time! Thanks guys!

Outsourcing seems to have many advantages if you believe all the news. Being involved in many software development projects I know that potential outsourcers very often have a lot of doubts. They consider outsourcing to be a good solution for their current issues, but they have doubts whether it will not introduce new ones. Both the advantages and the doubts will be applicable in certain cases and not applicable in other’s. Instead of focussing on all the advantages, I plan to write a blog post about the doubts and how to overcome or to accept them. I invite you to share your doubts. I will mention all relevant input, including the source.

This evening I posted the above message on Twitter, which already generated a lot of useful input for my blog post. Based on my own daily experience I could try to define the list of the most common doubts, but I don’t feel confident that this list will cover all. Therefore, I would like you to share your doubts as well. Please leave them as a comment below.

A question could be why to focus on doubts. In general I am someone who looks at things from the positive side. But in this case I know that it is needed to take doubts really serious, otherwise the outsourcing will fail for sure. Doubts, whether true or not, can be a serious blocker. Not for everyone outsourcing is the right way to go.

All input will be highly appreciated and I will mention the relevant ones in my post. Please also provide your answer on the following question:

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

Today I received updated information about the Indian outsourcing market from two different sources within one hour. Too much of a coincidence. Due to the economic downturn companies in the US and the UK recently cut their IT budgets by up to 45%. Many projects have ben put on hold. Since most of the outsourcing projects in India come from the US and UK a lot of good IT people are available on the labour market today. Rates have dropped for the first time in years.

Recently I have noticed an increased activity in my mailbox related to Indian IT providers. About a year ago I started looking for a potential partner for GOYELLO. The offered rates were not that attractive at that time. Over the last few weeks I have received some better offers. But for the price alone we are not going to outsource to India of course.

Although there is a significant decrease in the IT spendings in the US and the UK, India seems to manage the downturn quite well. This is  mainly because of contract renewals and the rise of the spendings in the local market. To attract other income sources, most vendors are trying to climb the value chain by offering (business) consultancy services. Nevertheless, most IT vendors are facing the need for cost cutting. Some smaller vendors might not survive, but the main players will still exist if the market is going to improve again.

Although, this is not applicable to every vendor. Satyam,one of the biggest vendors in India announced a tremendous loss in January for the first time since the beginning of the company.

From the second half of 2009 new projects are expected to come from the US thanks to the governmental stimulus packages. Till that moment it is possible to enjoy the more attractive rates.

For further reading: PMR Report – “India – the leading destination for outsourcing IT services”

Cost reduction, lack of available resources, focus on the core competences. These are just some reasons to start considering outsourcing of IT activities. Big companies are already used to this way of working. Right now the SME market seems to be ready. On a daily basis I meet SME company owners who consider outsourcing some parts of their IT. Their motives differ, their “fear” is identical.

It has already been proven that outsourcing of IT can have many advantages. That’s why I strongly encourage everyone to go for it.  The advantages vary depending on the situation: more flexibility, continuity of supply, availability of knowledge, efficiency, productivity and cost savings. To make sure that outsourcing is successful you will have to start working in a different way. Probably you will be afraid of losing control. This does not have to be the case. But for sure you will be more relying on a third party than before.

As an outsourcing organization you will have to acquire professional knowledge about the ways of managing a third party. Believe me, this is something completely different compared with managing regular procurement contracts. The demand will change continuously. You will have to combine all the existing request from your organization. A well-thought-through functional design will be the input for your supplier.

In the beginning this will feel unnatural and complex. After some time it will lead to a more professional IT service. A clear definition from the demand side will always lead to a better result. The fact that you will cooperate with full time IT professionals will increase the quality level of the solutions. And outsourcing will lead to more cost transparency.

If you organize your outsourcing project in a proper way, there is no need to be afraid!