"Give your 100%"
The comment I got for my last post (What do I want to achieve?) was so to-the-point that I need to reply to it. Read the comment first; I'm not quoting all of it here.
You start with that part of your work where you can afford to compromise on quality and where your business secrets (core work) are not given away. You start the partership. Slowly, if the outsourcee people are good, you start putting more faith into your partner. You start giving more important/core work.
Right. And let me say this : What you're describing is no different from the path which any employee of any company goes through: as a freshie, he's given simple work. Then as he learns about the project, he's given bigger chunks. Eventually, he's working on core parts of the project.
All else being equal, this is what would happen eventually to you, the guy who's working on a clients project while being an employee of an outsourcee company. But is all else equal? I've seen people who have achieved this, no doubt. There are people who have become core contributors to their client's projects, people who are respected by the clientside employees as one of their own. Though the ratio is less compared to that of code monkeys (as you rightly say), it does happen.
Now. Tell me : how much of this progress is due to the outsourcee's help, and how much due to the individual's? I say from personal experience that the people who are core contributors have done it on their own steam. They are driven individuals who have bucked the system of their company and fought to be allowed to contribute more to their client. Solely because they're employees of the outsourcee company, working for a separate client, they are pulled back in several ways from contributing their 100% to the client's project. I think this calls for examples. Here's a few ways in which outsourcee companies pull back their employees:
- The promotion/managership trap. I've mentioned this before. The client company doesnt really have control over the promotion path of the employee, right? All it can do is to give bonuses, and commend the employee in its appraisal contribution. And what happens if the employee gets a good rating from the client? He becomes in charge of a team - he gets a promotion, or a raise, and becomes a manager for the project. The team keeps increasing until he cant contribute any more. One of my friends, who went through this experience, describes it as "5% real work, 95% donkeywork managing kids." He eventually forced his division bosses to appoint a proper manager for his growing team, so he could concentrate on his work.
- "Processes". Note the statistics touted by the Indian outsourcee companies. Most of the CMM level 3,4,5, whatever, companies are in India. This is a level of software processed above what most client companies have. Now, I'm not saying Software Processes are a bad thing. But their primary purpose is to ease flow of information between the client and the outsourcee team. Instead, processes are used as a marketing weapon. A project proposal from an outsourcee company to a potential client will have : "Our company has CMM level 5, so we are better suited for doing your work." I remember, in the days when this trend was just starting up, a startup client split up some work between my group and another CMM level 5 company. We went through an entire design, implementation and testing cycle, in the time that the other company took to follow its processes and get a proper proposal to the client. There are reverse-type examples too: when the client wants to follow some processes and the outsourcee has different ideas. What I'm saying is that processes are supposed to be in tune with the client, and should be used to get the project done better, rather than solely as a marketing tool.
- The dreaded "Company Participation" Question. When all is said and done, you're still an employee of the Outsourcee company, not of the client. You have have given your 100% to the client, and have worked on the core architecture. But what have you done for your own company? Have you participated in the other company-related activities? Your duties, in a typical Outsourcee-type company may range from attending and organizing seminars, joining umpteen 'work groups', helping the HR department out in recruiting people, and God knows what else. It doesnt matter if you actually spend all your time working on the client's work - brownie points are deducted from your rating during appraisal time because you didnt spend some time in "improving" your company.
I can think of more problems. But I think my point has been made. Your own company pulls you back from working on par with those guys in your client company. If you let yourself go with the flow, you end up with the career path I described in a previous post.
And how many people talk about this sort of stuff?
You start with that part of your work where you can afford to compromise on quality and where your business secrets (core work) are not given away. You start the partership. Slowly, if the outsourcee people are good, you start putting more faith into your partner. You start giving more important/core work.
Right. And let me say this : What you're describing is no different from the path which any employee of any company goes through: as a freshie, he's given simple work. Then as he learns about the project, he's given bigger chunks. Eventually, he's working on core parts of the project.
All else being equal, this is what would happen eventually to you, the guy who's working on a clients project while being an employee of an outsourcee company. But is all else equal? I've seen people who have achieved this, no doubt. There are people who have become core contributors to their client's projects, people who are respected by the clientside employees as one of their own. Though the ratio is less compared to that of code monkeys (as you rightly say), it does happen.
Now. Tell me : how much of this progress is due to the outsourcee's help, and how much due to the individual's? I say from personal experience that the people who are core contributors have done it on their own steam. They are driven individuals who have bucked the system of their company and fought to be allowed to contribute more to their client. Solely because they're employees of the outsourcee company, working for a separate client, they are pulled back in several ways from contributing their 100% to the client's project. I think this calls for examples. Here's a few ways in which outsourcee companies pull back their employees:
- The promotion/managership trap. I've mentioned this before. The client company doesnt really have control over the promotion path of the employee, right? All it can do is to give bonuses, and commend the employee in its appraisal contribution. And what happens if the employee gets a good rating from the client? He becomes in charge of a team - he gets a promotion, or a raise, and becomes a manager for the project. The team keeps increasing until he cant contribute any more. One of my friends, who went through this experience, describes it as "5% real work, 95% donkeywork managing kids." He eventually forced his division bosses to appoint a proper manager for his growing team, so he could concentrate on his work.
- "Processes". Note the statistics touted by the Indian outsourcee companies. Most of the CMM level 3,4,5, whatever, companies are in India. This is a level of software processed above what most client companies have. Now, I'm not saying Software Processes are a bad thing. But their primary purpose is to ease flow of information between the client and the outsourcee team. Instead, processes are used as a marketing weapon. A project proposal from an outsourcee company to a potential client will have : "Our company has CMM level 5, so we are better suited for doing your work." I remember, in the days when this trend was just starting up, a startup client split up some work between my group and another CMM level 5 company. We went through an entire design, implementation and testing cycle, in the time that the other company took to follow its processes and get a proper proposal to the client. There are reverse-type examples too: when the client wants to follow some processes and the outsourcee has different ideas. What I'm saying is that processes are supposed to be in tune with the client, and should be used to get the project done better, rather than solely as a marketing tool.
- The dreaded "Company Participation" Question. When all is said and done, you're still an employee of the Outsourcee company, not of the client. You have have given your 100% to the client, and have worked on the core architecture. But what have you done for your own company? Have you participated in the other company-related activities? Your duties, in a typical Outsourcee-type company may range from attending and organizing seminars, joining umpteen 'work groups', helping the HR department out in recruiting people, and God knows what else. It doesnt matter if you actually spend all your time working on the client's work - brownie points are deducted from your rating during appraisal time because you didnt spend some time in "improving" your company.
I can think of more problems. But I think my point has been made. Your own company pulls you back from working on par with those guys in your client company. If you let yourself go with the flow, you end up with the career path I described in a previous post.
And how many people talk about this sort of stuff?
posted by Sudarshan | 8:41 AM
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