A look at mobile product management & development
Ed Cave has been around the block when it comes to product and project management in mobile development. Most recently he supervised the creation of the rather innovative Txt2Lock application and we caught up with him back in August 2007 with a 19 question Q&A. A free agent on the look out for new projects, I thought it would be good to get Ed’s perspective on managing application & product development, particularly when it comes to outsourcing internationally AND meeting deadlines. Over to Ed:
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When Ewan asked me whether I would like to write an article for SMS Text News, I jumped at the chance. The topic of Project Management was mentioned and because there is so much to talk about I decided to focus on my experiences dealing with third party developers based in the Far East.
The improvement and reduction in costs for communications in recent years has lead to a massive growth in using overseas developers. Research states 52% of UK companies expect to increase their overseas development in the next 3 years citing cost as the main reason and I can see why.
For the last 3 years I worked for an application development company as a Product Manager and we used 2 different companies based in the Far East. This enabled us to save approximately two thirds of the cost of using a UK-based company or hiring our own internal developer. Whilst cost is obviously a big decider in the decision making process for many companies there are a number of potential draw backs, risks and sacrifices that have to be made when out sourcing.
The first major draw back can be the difference in languages. Language can cause problems when specifying the required work, changes to be made and communicating over contracts to name a few examples. The first company we used was based in Thailand and run by a former British national who also spoke very good Thai. This was a major deciding factor in choosing that particular company to undertake our development, knowing that the message we were trying to get across would be understood. This cut out a lot of the hassle we later experienced when using a second company, which was based in China, where our needs often had to be repeated and spelled out in very basic English.
Another problematic issue can be time differences with the 2 parties working in different time zones. If an immediate change or new requirement was identified the end result often had to wait until the next day as our business hours differed and direct communication was limited. This is where a big sacrifice has to be made by working during unsocial hours. Time management also becomes an important factor. I lost count of the amount of times I spent on Skype conference calls at 1am in the morning. After a short while I soon learned to make sure any UK based work I needed to do was achieved in the morning with follow up tasks for the developers identified in the afternoon so that a single email with instructions could sent at the end of the business day. This enabled the developers to receive all the necessary instructions at the beginning of their working day rather than numerous emails during my working day with changes, which can lead to confusion caused mainly by the language barrier mentioned above. When precise and important deadlines needed to be met early starts were often involved which leads me to the next draw back.
Quality control! The words ‘cheap’ and ‘quality’ do not often go together and cost cutting as we all know can sometimes bring more (often unnecessary) work your way. Repetition was a key word I can use to describe my experiences and often caused unnecessary grief and stress when trying to meet deadlines. I imagine with having in house developers a major advantage can be walking over to the developer’s desk and showing them exactly what needs to be corrected and having this achieved on the spot (work load depending obviously). With using overseas developers the time zone issue reappears which, combined with the language issue and the fact they work remotely from you, your basic changes can be a time consuming process causing delays to delivery dates. That said with concise and good explanation an excellent quality can be achieved.
Mobile application development can be a trying and difficult task anyway due to the sheer number of handsets, different operating systems and the speed within which the market moves with new handsets coming out monthly. Often our applications were tested both ends from a user perspective so that we could firstly sign off the development work and be rest assured what we were delivering met our clients needs and the high standard of work we wanted to provide. This itself brings about more costs with handsets having to be sourced twice to provide both parties involved a guarantee of quality. A method we used to combat this was to have a UK based external test group to provide us with valuable handset compatibility feedback as well as usability and functionality opinions. This not only allowed us to improve the level of our work but also save on any unnecessary handset costs.
The final, and potentially most important, issue I would like to mention is trust. Using overseas developers involves a lot of trust and I will not pretend to understand international law, but it is complicated. However water tight a contract can be if any disagreements occur there is not much guarantee the 3rd party will not ‘disappear’ or even use your products themselves. Using an in house developer or even a UK-based company gives a lot more security and a guarantee in this area, by being a lot more accessible and covered by the same governing laws as well as cultural attitudes. Often the deciding factor in our choice of developers to use came about after a meeting in their home country. Whilst this can be costly and offers no guarantees it can give peace of mind knowing who you are dealing and working with.
Whilst this article may come across with a negative view and focused on using 2 different companies with contrasting results I am in favour of using overseas developers if cost is an issue. Whilst sacrifices had to be made the supplier we used, based in China, removed a lot of my negative impressions and proved that using overseas developers can be a great success. In the last year the Chinese developers adjusted their working hours and improved their English, which I have no doubt helped achieve a very high level of work and a working relationship that improved over time. Both parties benefited.
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Thanks very much Ed!
(If you’re on the hunt for some assistance with product development or project management, do drop a note over to Ed via me or talk directly to Ed (edcave at mac.com)
