When you offshore projects, one of the key people you will interface with are your first level leaders of the team offshore; this person may be called by various titles - tech lead, module lead or project manager; some times the module and tech leads report into a project manager.
Many offshoring managers do not readily realize that this person or group (tech lead and project manger) holds the key to their success; the are responsible for meeting not only the technical requirements but the schedule and quality requirements as well; individually or as a group they constitute the first level management with deep understanding of what is really occurring.
This group tends to be more technical and less "project management" oriented; also the titles and responsibilities vary with each vendor you work with; so also the competency levels of these individuals. You cannot assume that they know "project management" the way you may envision it just because of their titles.
When you launch a new project, one of the first things you need to do is to make sure that you understand the project management proficiency of this group; if necessary, you need to augment their project management skills by providing "supplementary project management." You can approach this several ways - you may decide to take responsibility for some aspects of project management yourself or you can arrange to train the offshore staff. In addition to the theoretical aspects of this, they should become well grounded in the terminology and business practices unique to your organization.
This step is in addition to your working with vendor managers in their hierarchy; this part usually happens; but supplementary project management often does not.
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M. M. Sathyanarayan is President of Global Development Consulting, Inc., an advisory firm focused on global outsourcing. He led the pioneering effort in global outsourcing at HP/Tandem beginning in early 90s and was Founder/CEO of a startup. He is now internationally recognized consultant, author, trainer and offshoring coach. He has helped a number of companies improve their performance by effectively leveraging global resources.
