Download PresentationAlainMaquetOutsourcing

Your executive Partner in achieving
Project Management Excellence
Outsourced IT project to India
Lessons learned from a customer point
of view
Alain MAQUET, PMP
Program Manager
www.threon.com
Luxembourg
– Wednesday,
9th February
2011 Seminar use only
IBCL-PMI
- Project
Management
& Outsourcing
Agenda
 The project actors
 Project objectives and context
 Why outsourcing to India and to ITC Infotech
 Global assessment of the project
 Scope / Time / Cost / Quality balance
 Quality of deliverables
• Technical
• Functional & non-functional
 Respect of timeframe
 Communications


Lessons learned
… in 25 minutes
Personal conclusions
IBCL-PMI - Project Management & Outsourcing Seminar use only
www.threon.com
© 2011 Threon | All rights reserved
Actors

Champ Cargosystems (Luxembourg)
– CCS is the market leader in providing integrated software solutions to
air cargo carriers …
– Headquartered in Luxembourg and with offices in London, Zurich and
Atlanta

ITC Infotech (Bangalore - India / London)
– ITC Infotech, a global IT services company, is a fully-owned subsidiary
of ITC Limited, the US$ 6 billion diversified conglomerate.
– Headquartered in Bangalore, India, with subsidiaries in UK and USA

Launch customer of the application (Luxembourg)
 not named

Independent project manager (Luxembourg)
 Alain Maquet
www.threon.com
IBCL-PMI - Project Management & Outsourcing Seminar use only
© 2011 Threon | All rights reserved
3
Project objectives & Context…

Project objectives
 Business : Complete Champ’s solutions portfolio
 Technical :
Deliver to Champ “Weight & Balance Application R1.0”
• In time and budget
• Complete application code
• Online documentation
• Stand alone and server based deployments
 Positioning :
The application must be on a top list versus competition
• Fully graphical
• Easy to use (drag and drop)
• Fully integrated with Cargo IMP messaging
IBCL-PMI - Project Management & Outsourcing Seminar use only
www.threon.com
© 2011 Threon | All rights reserved
4
Project objectives & Context…

Context (April 2008)
 Legacy solution for 747-400 on Excel 2003 not to be migrated
• While workstations are being migrated to new Excel 2007
 Previous experience with outsourcing development to India
• Challenged
 New Boeing 747-8F announced for Sept. 2009
• Handbook with structural details not published by Boeing
IBCL-PMI - Project Management & Outsourcing Seminar use only
www.threon.com
© 2011 Threon | All rights reserved
5
Why ITC Infotech
 … why would you outsource to India ?
IBCL-PMI - Project Management & Outsourcing Seminar use only
www.threon.com
© 2011 Threon | All rights reserved
6
Why ITC Infotech

Technical qualifications
 A core team of highly qualified
people

Expertise in the industry (Transportation / Air cargo)
 Team leaders have recognized experience within air cargo industry

Capacity to respond quickly to “any” need of resource
 The 25 to 40 people of the team have 1800+ colleagues

Quality certification ISO 900x & CMMI level 5 processes

Price
 Fixed price agreement and commitment from very early in the
negotiation
IBCL-PMI - Project Management & Outsourcing Seminar use only
www.threon.com
© 2011 Threon | All rights reserved
7
Global assessment of the project

Scope / Time / Cost / Quality balance
 SRS, HLD, LLD required extended period
 Scope « understood » was delivered on time and with the required
technical quality
 Complete « expected » scope delivered during warranty period
within agreed delay and technical quality
 Cost : fixed price + 3.5% change requests
IBCL-PMI - Project Management & Outsourcing Seminar use only
www.threon.com
© 2011 Threon | All rights reserved
8
Global assessment of the project

Quality of deliverables
 Technical
• Source code : well documented, clean, following good standards…
• Documentation : complete
 Functional and non functional
• All functions in SRS have been delivered… after re-alignment of scope
understanding (detected in acceptance)
• But only basic behaviors have been considered … following exactly the
scenarios described in SRS (no projection to misleading users)
• Screen ergonomy had to be reviewed locally (with launch customer)
IBCL-PMI - Project Management & Outsourcing Seminar use only
www.threon.com
© 2011 Threon | All rights reserved
9
Global assessment of the project

Respect of timeframe
 No flexibility on schedule… until Boeing delays announcement
 Timeframe always respected
 Timeframe vs. risks
IBCL-PMI - Project Management & Outsourcing Seminar use only
www.threon.com
© 2011 Threon | All rights reserved
10
Global assessment of the project

Communications
 British English, Indian English, Luxemburgish English….
• Not always easy to understand each other
• Written documents were the “safer” approach … but could never be as
complete as required for a perfect adaptation to the project
 Body language misunderstanding
 Time zones’ differences left only a few hours for common free
slots
… but is very convenient
for being productive !
 Demultiplication of
security policies makes
file / code exchange
difficult
IBCL-PMI - Project Management & Outsourcing Seminar use only
www.threon.com
© 2011 Threon | All rights reserved
11
Lessons learned

Communication is key for local project…
… and is vital to outsourced project
 Every single detail cannot be written and communication
channels must be defined to allow controlled information flows
 Consider partial re-location of teams
 Adapt travel budget
 Share common repository from
the beginning of the project

Fixed price contract are
too restrictive toward
scope adaptations
IBCL-PMI - Project Management & Outsourcing Seminar use only
www.threon.com
© 2011 Threon | All rights reserved
12
Personal conclusions

Very confident to consider again outsourcing to India
for any new medium / large size software
development
 Will take time at the beginning to define / set-up
communication channels and communications’
systems

Will have different approaches between functional
and non-functional requirements
… for the later one :
will consider re-location
 Really enjoyed the project
IBCL-PMI - Project Management & Outsourcing Seminar use only
www.threon.com
© 2011 Threon | All rights reserved
13
Your executive Partner in achieving
Project Management Excellence
Thank you
[email protected]
…and special thanks to Champ Cargosystems
www.threon.com
IBCL-PMI - Project Management & Outsourcing Seminar use only