Agile methodology is part of the mainstream in software development now. The business value is clear and the community, knowledge and tools have matured. More than 95% of respondents to VersionOne’s 10^th Annual State of Agile Report said their organisations practice agile and highlighted benefits such as faster product delivery, flexibility, and increased productivity.

Global outsourcing and the use of offshore teams is widespread. We’re talking about a market that was worth around US$90 billion in 2015, according to Accelerance. The ability to scale quickly, find the right expertise, and keep costs under control ensures that outsourcing is essential for many companies.

Both the agile and offshore trends have their obvious attractions, but bringing the two together can present a unique set of problems. Communication is such a key aspect of agile that distance between teams can be a tangible barrier. There are cultural differences and trust issues to deal with. However, it is possible to combine agile and offshore, if you adopt the right approach.

Open lines of communication

Agile enables faster development partly because it cuts out unnecessary bureaucracy and encourages daily conversations about the best way to proceed. The distributed nature of many modern development teams poses some definite problems. If your offshore team is on the other side of the world it may be difficult to promote effective communication.

There are a few ways to combat this issue, starting with some basic planning and consideration. Regular meetings are essential for agile development, but you must make sure that you schedule meetings for a time that works for both teams. If it’s the middle of the night for your offshore team, then that’s going to have a detrimental impact on their contribution.

Make sure that everyone uses a common Wiki, a forum, or another shared repository of collective wisdom. This enables team members internally and offshore to share knowledge, review the plans for the next sprint, and discuss issues or thoughts. You should also provide instant messaging and video conferencing tools. Audio calls are better than written communication, but there is still room for misinterpretation.

Face to face time is important

If people can actually see each other when they talk it really helps to develop the relationship and build trust. Set up the conference room for your regular meetings and test the technology ahead of time to avoid any frustrating delays or technical issues. Make sure that the person speaking can be seen by the other team and encourage employees to have face-to-face calls whenever possible.

There’s also no substitute for an actual physical visit. This is particularly important at the beginning of a project. Make sure you plan for site visits in both directions. Start with key team leads and have them spend time with the offshore team and vice versa to see exactly how things operate and establish one-to-one links with each other. Set aside some time during these visits for social activities that encourage long-lasting relationships and break down cultural barriers.

When your internal team and your offshore team understand what the other is doing and recognise them as people with their own personalities, instead of names on a list, they will work much more effectively together.

Learning is a two-way street

If you treat your offshore team like hired help, then you won’t get the benefit of their expertise and experience. Part of your decision to choose a specific offshore team was based on their skillset and the quality of their work on past projects. Remember that, although they’re assisting you with a specific project, they may also be able to offer useful insights and suggestions that could really benefit your company.

It’s also very important to ensure that the offshore team are able to make their voice heard. They should be participants in your regular meetings, not just observers. If they never ask questions, then you should be concerned. Make sure that participation is encouraged and even rewarded where appropriate. They should be properly valued and ideally treated as an extension of the company, rather than as a separate entity.

There are lots of other considerations to keep in mind when you employ agile and offshore strategies together, but these broad concepts should be in the forefront of your mind. For a successful, long-term partnership to work it must be mutually beneficial and laying the groundwork for effective communication is always a necessary prerequisite.

Written by Du Nguyen, Vice President of Delivery for KMS Technology, edited for web by Cecilia Rehn.

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“We’ve had another strong financial performance in the areas identified in our business strategy as key to SCC’s long-term success,” said SCC Chief Executive, James Rigby. “We continued to make investments throughout FY16 in additional capability, improved facilities and skilled people – all geared towards delivering the very best service to our customers.”

Investing in DevOps in Vietnam

The new global delivery centre that will be based in Vietnam, with an Autumn opening date, will provide its customers with comprehensive level thee and four infrastructure support.

In reference to the new Vietnam base, Rigby, Chief Executive of SCC, said, “It’s an exciting time for SCC as we look further east to a location that combines a sufficient time difference with widely-available technical skills. SCC Vietnam will be incorporated by August 2016 an we are aiming for an initial headcount of around 50.”

“Vietnam is a country of over 90 million people with an average age of 30. It has a high quality education system, similar to Romania, with over 300 IT-only universities. English is widely spoken to a high standard and the time difference of London+7 is ideal for 24×7 customer support.”

Talking to CRN, Rigby said, “Developing our own applications is really important for the future if we are to be competitive,” he said. “[DevOps staff] will be working on our cloud-management platforms. Our Universal Cloud Gateway is a brokerage portal, from which we can provision and build hybrid clouds.”

Edited from sources Jordan Platt

Sources:
CRN
MicroScope
The Register

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Companies have increasingly been outsourcing software development and testing since the early 2000s. Initially, outsourcing was all about ‘offshoring’ and seen primarily as a cost‑reduction initiative. Today, many companies send work across borders, and a significant number of those companies are also multinationals that regionalise product development for a global market.

The globalisation of IT has dramatically changed the outsourcing landscape. Initially, India was attractive for low cost labour, but the demand for skilled workers put upward pressure on wages, and employee turnover increased as workers were lured to better paying positions. This has resulted in the migration of software testing to developing countries, of which Vietnam is quickly moving up as a recognised destination for testing outsourcing.

Vietnam’s development into a destination for testing outsourcing

Vietnam has had a long and tumultuous history, finally becoming a unified country in 1975. In the 1990s the government began encouraging the establishment of private businesses and focusing on higher education. Today, the country has developed large industrial and technology parks in the largest urban centres, notably Ho Chi Minh City and Danang. In 2014 Vietnam had moved to the 12^th position on A.T. Kearney’s Global Services Location index.

Silicon Valley‑based LogiGear Corporation was the first company to locate a test centre in Vietnam in 2004. The company rationalised it at the time, as it was the demand for specialised automated testing expertise that really put momentum behind outsourced testing. With the rest of the world focused on India, it was a good time to get established in Vietnam. By being the first, the company was able to develop strong ties with the top universities that enables it to continue to attract top graduates today.

In the years since LogiGear put in the first test centre, other notable companies and multi‑nationals such as Intel, LG,
Alcatel‑Lucent, Bosch and others have followed suit in establishing centres in the region.

One big advantage of Vietnam as an outsourcing destination is that the country has a large available labour pool giving it a labour force to population ratio of 58%. This high ratio makes top talent more accessible and wages stable, and keeps employee turnover among the lowest in regions that are destinations for IT outsourcing. The universities have also focused on driving high educational standards for IT and mathematics.

Investment-ready cities

A significant factor that helps attract investment is the competitive nature of the cities themselves. The city governments have the ability to operate autonomously.
Ho Chi Minh City is a thriving, modern urban city that was at the centre of the early IT expansion. The large population and infrastructure made it investment‑ready, and provided a steady supply of educated and willing workers. Further to the north, Danang is putting in place the infrastructure to compete with Ho Chi Minh City. With room to expand there has been a significant building boom in last decade. Citing Danang’s statistics office Bloomberg Business recently reported the city has invested US$4.5 billion in infrastructure over the past five years. Approximately US$60 million was spent on a new airport terminal and US$93 million on a highway overpass, to make getting into and commuting across the city hassle‑free.

Culturally, Vietnam stands out from many developing countries. Workers there take extreme pride of ownership, and aren’t afraid to voice their concerns if they feel that projects could be done better. By taking an active role in projects, the workers act more like employees than just contractors, which companies find beneficial. Also, unlike neighbours to the north, Vietnamese people have a high regard for intellectual property. Everyone seems to understand that it is real property with real value and that protection is vital. Emphasising the fact is that there is no market for stolen IP in Vietnam.

Project managers at LogiGear are meeting to design the strategy and direction in testing.

Promoting a modern testing curriculum

The emphasis on education across the country is a key factor. While it’s unlikely all the mundane, laborious elements of software testing will be eliminated, the constantly increasing complexity of software is changing the nature of testing. Software testing is becoming less about simply cost‑effective labour. It requires providing the right skills and technology to adequately test software in a world where time‑to‑market is competitive advantage, placing the focus on availability of talent and quality of work. These are keys to the success of companies including LogiGear that concentrate on testing.

Until 2004, LogiGear provided testing services from the US. The demand for services and the strategic vision to focus on solutions for automated testing as agile development was gaining steam and were the determining factors for expansion to Vietnam. Working with a few key universities, the company helped develop testing curriculum to prepare graduating students with the testing and test design skills required to be proficient in automation. In parallel, the company developed TestArchitect, a platform for large‑scale test automation. The combination of trained test automation engineers and the new technology provide a unique automation solution for agile environments. Today’s software development methods necessitate a high‑degree of test automation. To be successful you have to have the right technology and people with the right skills. Combined, the education of the people coming out of the universities and specialisation training and technology, enables cost‑effective automating testing for companies.

Summary

It’s vitally important for companies to think globally, not just for their products, but for the partners and providers also. For years, outsourced software testing has been synonymous with providers in India. But Vietnam has moved onto the stage, and is becoming more recognised as not only a lower‑cost destination, but also as a high quality provider for testing and test automation.

To help increase awareness of Vietnam as a destination for outsourcing, a community collectively comprised of IT companies in Vietnam who offer software development and testing and business process outsourcing services, as well as academia who are engaged in higher education in the IT sector formed the Vietnam IT Outsourcing Organization (VNITO). Through its conferences, the organisation disseminates up‑to‑date developments on the outsourcing business landscape in Vietnam, to aid IT outsourcing buyers and sellers as they explore and engage in their first step of developing business relationships in the region.

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