Category Archives: Offshoring

Can video conferencing replace physical contact?Kan de video conferentie fysiek contact vervangen?

The past months, I have interviewed some 35 candidates for a marketing and sales role in our company. Because I want to save time, I always do the first screening through Skype. I believe this is a better medium than only phone, since you can see the candidate. So I have a list of questions that I go through in maximum 30 minutes to assure that there is at least a basis.

The Business Value of Agile Retrospectives

Agile retrospectives are a great way to continuously improve your way of working. Getting actions out of a retrospective that are doable, and getting them done helps teams to learn and improve. An overview of things that you can use to get value out of your retrospectives.

Together with Luis Gonçalves I have written the pocket book on Getting Value out of Agile Retrospectives which can be downloaded from InfoQ and Leanpub. This book is based on our blog posts on retrospectives (see Luis blogs on retrospectives and Ben’s blogs on retrospectives). We value your feedback, feel free to contact me and let me know what you think of this?

Building bridges between people – in two waysBruggen bouwen tussen mensen – op twee manieren

If you have a look at our facebook cover picture, you might already imagine it. Being a Global IT Staffing Company, this does not only mean that we do business on an international level. For us, operating in and between …

Remote teams: why you need them and how to work with themRemote teams: waarom u ze nodig heeft en hoe u ermee werkt

Two months back, I visited the lean startup conference in San Francisco. One of the talks that I loved was with Matt Mullenweg, the creator of WordPress. He built wordpress step by step in the past years. Today, he has …

Does the situation in Ukraine affect nearshoring?Heeft de situatie in Oekraïne invloed op nearshoring?

The past weeks I often get questions about Ukraine from people. They wonder whether we notice anything of the unrest in Ukraine and whether it affects the work our nearshore teams do.

From my perspective, it’s simple: as long as nobody barricades our office or cuts the internet or power lines, business can go on. Our developers love their work and as long as they can do their work, they will. On the longer term, a change in government might affect laws, which may have an impact on the way nearshoring is organized. But the past years, Ukrainian government has discussed changing tax laws and only a very small new tax was added last year. So I am not worried about our office in Kiev and Odessa.