Category Archives: Offshoring

The future of work is remote

The past decade, more work is done remotely than every before, all fueled by technology and globalization. Companies facilitate working from home, outsource more and move work offshore. I think it fits us humans. Before the industrial revolution, there were no offices. People worked from home. Our ancestors were chasing deer in the forest and would probably think we’re crazy sitting inside a cubicle all day long. Working from home gives more freedom, time with your family and less distractions.

How to make specifications for an outsourced project?

The traditional notion of outsourcing projects, whether it’s to a nearby firm or a team on the other side of the planet, is that you need to specify things. Many people believe that in order to outsource a project far away, they need to specify everything. And because it takes time to specify, they are reluctant to engage remote teams. Usually, the idea of outsourcing starts because of time constraints – you don’t have the people or the time to do it inside your own company. So we have a chicken and egg problem.

What 5 questions do you ask selecting a (remote) software team?Welke 5 vragen vraag jij bij het selecteren van een (remote) software team?

I’ve been pondering a question all week and need your help: what things do you want to know in order to pick the right (remote) team for your software project? This is not going to be a long blog post, rather I would like to have your views as comments, so others can learn from it. If you have a team, it would also be good to read on and reply, just imagine what your clients (would) ask.

Benefits of Doing Agile Retrospectives

Retrospectives bring benefits to agile teams. They help them improve and deliver value to their customers. And by improving team performance, retrospectives deliver value to your business.

This article is based on chapter from the book Getting Value out of Agile Retrospectives by Luis Gonçalves and Ben Linders. This book contains many exercises that you can use to facilitate retrospectives, supported with the “what” and “why” of retrospectives, the business value and benefits that they can bring you, and advice for introducing and improving retrospectives.

How to overcome the risks of offshoring?

Are there any risks in offshoring? That’s the first questions that comes to my mind when people are afraid of moving work offshore. I think that many ‘risks’ are just perceived (how many things that you were afraid of in your life really happened?). I also believe that this perception can be altered and that certain steps can be taken to reduce the (perceived) risk.