The Plan

The initial plan was to train the liaison within my department, as there was an immediate need for assistance. After, he would be cycle through the teams of my peers, to have him learn about each of their departments. The liaison was to learn about the environment, gather documentation, and set up an environment offshore for development. As demand increased, we would slowly grow a team offshore. My focus was to start them off slow, as content managers, support staff, and graphic designers. As experience grew, we would spread the offshore team into other, more complex areas of development, such as new development and project management.

Step One – Training and Environment

My team has always been ahead of the game in terms of documentation. We use a shared platform across all of our sites, so the structure of our projects are all similar. Each of the services and the methods are documented with code samples on their usage. We use a project template to jump-start project development, with documentation on the functionality of each of the DLLs, aspx pages, and ashx handlers. We also have templates for project estimation, requirements documentation, and system testing. We have a checklist to guide the developer through the project process. All of our code is stored in VSS, all of our DDL and DML SQL is stored with the solution, and all the documentation is stored in our Documentum instance. Promotes are handled throught CruiseControl for .Net code, and SQL Navigator for the SQL code. All pur projects are initiated through a centralized PMO, and our Client Facing team are the overall project managers. Providing all of this information about our code and our process was the easiest part of the transition.

Getting the offshore team a working environment was not as easy. All of our servers are in the United States, behind our firewall. Working with our security team, VPN access was ruled out as too risly to provide without a more diligent legal contract. This left few options. The one that was chosen was a web based Citrix solution. Tools such as Visual Studio, VSS, and SQL Navigator, were provided to the development, test, and production environment through the Citrix Business Partner site. Some other tools were provided directly to the offshore team, such as local copies of Visual Studio and a local version of our database.

Step Two – Content

Some of the first tasks assigned to the offshore were to help manage content for new projects. I figured that this was a simple set of tasks that would expose the outsourced developers to our development environment. An offshore developer was added to a new project, paired up with an existing onshore developer, and work was divided. Each new page has to be registered in the database, and assigned to the proper application, with all the right properties and URL rewriting information. Our page content comes from advertising agencies in the form of HTML. We take that HTML, slice it into reusable blocks and unique blocks, and insert them into our custom content management database. Each of the pages then has to be associated to each of the content blocks. All of this data is inserted into the database via Data Manipulation (DML) SQL scripts. Once inserted, the pages need to be tested with the solution. These activities were the responsibility of the offshore team members.

Step Three – Support

A significant part of our development activity is support. Each project allocates a 5 year budget to support that application, and we need to manage those activities just as well as projects, if not better. In fact, support tickets are like mini projects. They contain an analysis, design, implement, test, deploy, and stabilize phase just like projects do. The only real difference is that upport activities last less than 15 days. This is another great way to get new staff familiar with a new environment. We set aside two people offshore to be responsible for support. The tickets were divided across the two people. And they had all the same resources as the project based developers. These two very quickly got a cross section of all projects and sites, tools and technologies, and processes and procedures.

We had also implemented a role onshore that would be responsible for coordinating all support, both across technologies and across the globe. This person was responsible for support assignment, workload, quality, and process, all as it related to support. This was received well. Support functions now had a champion; a clear voice representing their perspective.

Next

In my next post, I will cover the results of our new outsourcing contract, and how some other teams were impacted by the outsourcing contract. I will also cover and how it became the most important decision of the year for the team.

The World is Flat

Outsourcing and offshoring is a mainstream business practice in today’s economy. Companies reach to outsourcing and offshoring to find cost savings, find expertise outside of their core business, and provide a follow-the-sun workforce. Blended costs for outsourced companies is lower than a purely domestic team by leveraging lower resource costs in other countries like India, Brazil, and the Philippines. Things are no exception where I work.

The Story

I have decided to document the transformation of my department into a global organization that embraces outsourcing and offshoring. I am also hoping that those that went through this process with me who read my blog will provide comments of their own, and keep me honest.

In The Beginning…

In the middle of 2007, my department decided to globalize our work force and find an outsourcing vendor. Other departments had experience with Satyam, Intellogroup, and Accenture. We decided to start with Satyam, as we heard the most positive reviews of their performance.

We put together a brief meeting and walked through our objectives of blending a global team to drive down costs. Over the course of the next 4 months, we focused our interviewing skills at a half dozen candidates for our first outsourced team member. The first candidate seemed to be a good fit for our team, and so we made short order in making an offer and getting a contract signed. But, in the 24 hours between interview and offer, the candidate mysteriously became unavailable. Interview followed interview, and all the candidates seemed to fall short of our expectations. It reached a point where the resumes stopped coming in. With only two months left in the year, we resolved ourselves to try another outsourcing company.

After reaching out to Intelligroup, we held a brief meeting with them. The meeting turned into an ad-hoc interview for one of the attendees. He seemed to be strong in .Net technologies, have a solid background in software architecture, knew enough about web technologies, and had project management experience. We made an offer, signed a contract, and on December 3, 2007, we had officially taken the plunge into offshore outsourcing and hired our onshore liaison.

Next…

My next post will talk about how we expanded the team to include our first offshore resources located in India, how we integrated them into the team, and some of the bumps and bruises we experienced along the way.

Over the holiday break I decided to tackle some of the books that I have stacking up next to my bedside.  One of them was How Would You Move Mount Fuji by William Poundstone.  This was a book that I know some of my colleagues had read already, and they recommended it highly, so I decided it was my turn. 

The book was a quick read.  The author kept my interest with not only the topic, but also with his concise explanations and his witty comments. 

Poundstone describes the history of the intelligence tests, and how it was developed.  They were used by our military to determine qualification for different job roles.  This led to the popular use of intelligence tests in the corporate world, particularly in the use of Silicon Valley.  During the civil rights movement, intelligence tests were determined to have a racial bias in the questions, so were banned as a hiring practice by the federal government.

The ban of intelligence tests did not deter those types of questions from remaining in interviews, however.  Looking for more people with minds like Bill Gates, puzzles made their way into the interviews at Microsoft.  They have popularized the use of logic puzzles and impossible questions.  Poundstone also describes the grueling day-long series of interviews at Microsoft and how you are rated throughout the process. 

My most important takeaways from the book was these nuggets of golden advice –

1. When the technology you use is changing rapidly, you must hire for problem-solving stills, not just for the technology.
2. A bad hiring decision is likely to hurt the company more than a  good hiring decision will help it.
3. If you ask puzzle questions in your interview, make sure they are worth the effort by asking yourself these two questions:
   1. Are you willing to hire someone because of a good answer to this question?
   2. Are you willing to reject someone because of a bad answer?

I highly recommend this book to any hiring manager who plans on asking any puzzle type questions.  I also think the book adds insight into the overall interview process, even if you don’t plan on asking them that type of question.

Have you read the book?  Do you have an opinion on puzzle questions in interviews?  Leave me your feedback and let me know what you think.

Tools are a great way to shorten time to complete tasks and improve quality in a process.  Hiring, Candidate Review, and Performance Review are no different.  Here are three tools that I have founds myself using while reviewing candidates.

SkillSurvey

So I got an automated email last week.  Big surprise, eh?  If you are like me, you get dozens of these a day.  This one was a little bit different.  It was from a company asking me to provide a reference for one of my old consultants.  That piqued my interest.  I opened it up, followed the link to SkillSurvey, and filled out the questions.  The simple instructions walked me through the process, and reassured me that my comments were anonymous and would be aggregated.  There were less than 10 questions, and were simple radio button scales.  I had the ability to put in freeform comments, and send it off. 

360Metrics

 Every other year, I have been encouraged by my management to do a 360 degree review of myself.  I log into 360Metrics and choose up to 3 direct reports, clients, peers, and managers.  Each of them receive emails to complete a set of predefined questions that rate and rank my skills on on a set of core values.  They are periodically reminded over the course of the review cycle.  When the review period closes, I receive an email and can generate an aggregate report of my ratings and comments. 

BrainBench

Every time I open up a requisition to find a new candidate for our team, I get a flood of resumes.  Eighty percent of those resumes have some sort of certification.  Most certifications we see are from Microsoft.  But some certifications come from BrainBench.  They offer certifications for individuals on a wide variety of specializations from Computer Software to Management, from Aptitude to Office Skills, from Communication to Industry Knowledge.  Obviously, the ones we see most often from BrainBench are technical in nature.  BrainBench also provides Pre-Hire Testing and Employee Development services to Employers.

Benefits

• These tools are simple to use
• The questions can be asked and are easy to analyze quantitatively
• The same questions are asked of all candidates, so the questions and the delivery are consistent
• They have open ended questions that allow you to analyze free-form text
• Since these tools are web based, they can be leveraged (both from the candidate and from the hiring manager) 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Drawbacks

• The tools may not be measuring what you are looking for
• It is not difficult to “game” the system to produce phony or inaccurate results
• The perception of these tools is that they measure which candidate is “better” than another
• Some of these tools may give an advantage to good test-takers
• The process may be too objective, and not interactive enough

Conclusion

I think that these tools can be a big help, and a great time saver.  Tools like SkillSurvey leave the evaluation up to the hiring manager, and help facilitate and focus the collection of critical hiring information.  However, the risk of relying on tools like BrainBench is that you take the interpersonal aspect out of the process.  You may miss an enthusiastic, bright candidate who is a bad test-taker, or who has the right attitude, but a different set of experiences. 

I am sure that there are lots of other tools available in this arena.  What tools have you used?  What have your experience been with them?  How do you use them in your process?

This is a follow-up post to my posts on .Net Hiring Manager Resources and on Preparing for a .Net Interview. I will be interviewing a number of candidates next week for open positions in our department. I thought it would be good to review the process that we have typically followed, and get feedback.

1. Introduction

Someone should meet the candidate at the receptionist’s desk. It is a good idea to have the hiring manager do this. Look them in they eye, introduce yourself, and shake their hands firmly. On the walk to the interview room, share some small talk about the weather and the drive. This gives you an idea if they will mind how far they will have to drive to work. It also gives you the opportunity to check out how they dress and how they carry themselves. Once you are in the interview room, let them know that the interview will be about an hour long. Ask them if they would like something to drink, and to get more comfortable. Introduce them to everyone that they are interviewing.

2. Discuss the Open Position

Once everyone has introduced themselves and gotten comfortable, the hiring manager should ask how much they know about the open position. It is good to discuss the company’s goals, the division or department you work for, the specific project they would be working on (or describe a typical project the department works on), and describe the requirements of the position.

3. Review the Candidate’s Resume

Be prepared with questions about job positions or projects listed on the candidate’s resume. Open the floor, and let all those participating in the interview ask questions. This may be about specific technologies or techniques of interest, corporate culture differences, or specific challenges that were overcome. Give the candidate the chance to show what they have done.

4. .Net Trivia

This section of the interview should be driven by your technical gurus. Getting the people involved that your candidate would work with, and giving them ownership of the interview process, gives them buy-in on the decision. The purpose of these questions is to judge the specific experiences of the candidate. They are not intended as the be all and end all of measuring knowledge, but should be geared to give you the interviewer a good handle of what the candidate has seen or done.

5. HTML / JavaScript / CSS Questions

It is not uncommon for .Net developers to be lacking in experience when it comes to HTML, Cascading Style Sheets and JavaScript. Any good web developer will need to know these thing, however. If you are hiring for web development work, be sure to cover the basics, and make sure they understand how these all blend together.

6. General Interviewing Questions

In most cases, your candidate will not be working alone. Understanding how they work on a team is critical to their success, and yours, after they are hired. This is your opportunity to ask non-technical questions that focus on personality, teamwork, flexibility, communication, project management, leadership, and responsibility.

7. Whiteboard Questions

Ask your candidate questions that make them get up in front of a group, diagram their ideas, and explain why his ideas are the right approach. This will show you what the candidate is like when speaking in front of other people, like clients or project managers. You see their communication and persuasion skills, as well as their technical ability and diagram skills.

8. Puzzles & Riddles

This is a fun part of the interview. Be sure the candidate is relaxed, and make sure they understand that they are not expected to get the questions right. You give them a riddle or a puzzle, and have them talk through their thought process. This will give you an opportunity to see their creative, out-of-the-box thinking potential.

9. Questions from the Candidate

Expect questions from the candidate. If they have no questions for you, there may be cause for concern. They are not thinking very hard about what you have told them and about what might be coming next for them.

10. Wrap Up

Thank the candidate for their time. If possible, give them an idea about when they or their consulting company will hear back from you. Walk them back to the receptionist, and ask if they need any directions. Again, this will let you see how far in advance they have thought, how much hand-holding they will need, and how much they can think independently.

So what do you think of these steps? Are there things that I have missed that should be covered? What do you do differently (or the same) that you find valuable?