This builds on an earlier post about 5 things to look for in a Successful Outsourcing Relationship.
One of the five most important factors that dictates the success of
your outsourced product development is the presence of frequent well defined deliverables.
Almost two decades ago, I had the privilege of teaching contrasting approaches to product development between Japanese and US companies in electronics. The Japanese companies invariably focused on having refined physical prototypes available as the product definition evolved. It allowed the various stakeholders to "touch and feel" the product before deciding on features and progress.
Good outsourced product development has many of the same characteristics. Insist on deliverables that are concrete and representative of final product. Some examples are:
Almost two decades ago, I had the privilege of teaching contrasting approaches to product development between Japanese and US companies in electronics. The Japanese companies invariably focused on having refined physical prototypes available as the product definition evolved. It allowed the various stakeholders to "touch and feel" the product before deciding on features and progress.
Good outsourced product development has many of the same characteristics. Insist on deliverables that are concrete and representative of final product. Some examples are:
- Fully functional click-thrus
- Documentation of business logic, ideally in pseudo-code form
- Working prototypes of technical risk items
- Data model with populated sample data
- Performance numbers
- Deployed product
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loved this post! simple, but its amazing how many people miss these basics. I wouldn't want to go more than two weeks into a project without seeing some of these.
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