Outsourcing Gone Bad - Another Reason to Consider Agile

I fail to see the connection between failed outsourcing and agile methods. An outsourced development shop can still use an agile or traditional development methodology - doesn't change the fact that they are still outsourced.

"A new study has found that cheeseburgers contain 27% more fat than regular burgers. Perhaps it's time to consider Agile methods.."

Am I wrong if I believe that the percentage of successful outsourced projects is bigger than succesful in-house projects? (cause I think I remember some data saying that only 1 in 6 in-house projects are successful, so according to this data it means 3 times more outsourced projects are successful than in-house) :-).

./alex
--
.w( the_mindstorm )p.

I was addressing the practice of cutting or reducing internal development, *replacing* it with outsourcing. In that case, some teams ask for a reprieve (to try Agile methods), in an attempt to give management the productivity increase they seek without resorting to outsourcing.

Apparently, I didn't get that across :-)

You are right in saying that this item doesn't in any way address use of Agile *with* outsourcing.

The gist of what you say sounds right (I'll look up the stats for you later, you're referring to the Standish Chaos Report stats, I believe). However, I'm not sure that the two are comparable... I'll get back to you.

Here are the original Standish Group 1994 stats (and 2000 stats in brackets): Success rate was only 16% (28%), while challenged projects accounted for 53% (49%), and impaired (canceled) for 31% (23%).  For "challenged" projects - projects which were, in fact delivered - on average, only 61% of originally specified features and functions were delivered, and 86% had >20% time overrun. (I don't know the 2000 stat for this)

I'm not sure we can compare these stats against the mentioned outsourcing stats, which don't indicate quality of deliverables or timeliness, only cost savings achieved.

In addition, Standish identified success criteria based on the study. I suspect that the absence of these factors would equally cripple outsourced and insourced projects.

Points / Success Criteria
19 / User Involvement
16 / Executive Management Support
15 / Clear Statement of Requirements
11 / Proper Planning
10 / Realistic Expectations
29 / other factors (see the site)
100 total point

Here are some recent stats: A new Gantthead.com article To Insource or Outsource IT notes:

In almost every conversation I have had with executives as to why they are pursuing outsourcing, the focus has been more on cost savings than on anything else. Unfortunately more times than not the results have been dismal as they fail to appreciate the complexities, intricacies and energies needed to manage the process.

In a recent study on outsourcing, IBM claims that companies that engage in IT outsourcing have shown 11.8 percent higher growth in earnings, 9.9 percent lower expenses and 8.6 percent higher return on assets than their competition.

PS: note that, given the dates of the Standish stats, the projects measured used traditional, not Agile development processes. Again, making it harder to apply these figures to our discussion here.