The scary part is that the outsourcing horror stories are not unique and you can find plenty of people who all have the same thing to say - it doesn't matter if the web development company is based in America or Pakistan, the stories tend to follow the same pattern.
So how can you avoid a website development nightmare? We've put together a few simple steps to help you sidestep any potential projects.
Onshore or Offshore Outsourcing?
While offshore outsourcing to a place like India is going to be around 1/3rd of the cost, there are plenty of additional hidden costs such as assigning a dedicated project manager to oversee the project. You may have to pay them overtime as they work additional hours and sort out problems that arise over communication and language barriers. If you can't assign a dedicated project manager to you website development then you may want to consider choosing a local development firm who you can meet with regularly.
A Detailed Requirements Document With Milestones
A requirements document can never have too much detail. Every page of the site needs to have the features listed and it should also include a milestone plan. The milestone plan should be linked to the contract so both parties know when agreed upon payments should be made. For example if part of the milestone says that the search function should be working, then payment can legitimately be delayed until the search function is actually working.
Getting A Contract Signed
Often people are prepared to go ahead with a project without a contract being signed or agreed upon. The contract will specify exactly when payments should be made, what is expected from both parties and that the requirements document has been agreed upon.
Communication, Communication, Communication
Website development projects, whether outsourced to India or contracted to the local IT firm, suffer from communication gaps. It's essential that you are available Mon-Fri to go through the site as it is being developed. When sending feedback, try to avoid sending 20 emails each containing a single problem, it's best to put it in to a document with many other issues because web developers prefer to work on large batches of fixes rather than irregularly doing small fixes.
This list is by no means exhaustive, but you should know before you start that website development is not an easy task, regardless of which company you choose. There will be many problems along the way but following some of the steps above you can work to minimize the issues that might come up. If there is one single thing you take away from this article it is that you need to be committed to the project - or hire someone on your end to be committed to the project.
