BOOK REVIEW
Book Title: Managing Offshore Development Projects: An Agile Approach
Author: Upadrista Venkatesh
Publisher: Multi-Media Publications Inc
List Price: $24.95 USD
Format: softcover, 255 pages
Publication Date: 2008
ISBN: 978-1-897326-68-8
Reviewer: Arati Bheemidi
Review Date: June 2023
Introduction
In today’s global environment where fierce competition exists across organizations to bring in new services or products, organizations are leveraging latest high technology systems to gain market share. In this process they are outsourcing their software development projects to offshore countries. It is extremely important for offshore service providers to manage and execute these projects effectively to reduce the risk of failure. This book talks about the processes, technologies, people and techniques which can help reduce this risk and improve overall project performance when executing offshore projects. Author describes his real-world experiences related to the problems he has seem, strategies he has developed, experimented and executed for the successful project implementation using Agile Methodology.
Overview of Book’s Structure
The book is organized well instilling the six agile principles through various chapters systematically.
Chapter 1 describes the engagement model when developing software projects and why the traditional waterfall methodology doesn’t work and why there is a need of specific engagement model for offshore projects execution.
Chapter 2 discusses the specific criteria that should be looked for when deciding which projects should adapt agile for their implementation, as every project development may not be work with agile.
In the software industry, successful engagement is always around people and resources. Chapter 3 describes how Resources make the winning engagement and strategies’ to hire the right teams, and to keep them motivated
Chapter 4 discusses one of the key agile software principles of teams focusing to create a working software over comprehensive documentation
Chapter 5 discusses how one of the successful engagement strategies is having good architecture and design.
Chapter 6 discusses the core principles for setting up a team environment for successful Agile Implementation.
Chapter 7 focuses on how to target the programming and testing approaches for an agile engagement.
Chapter 8 discusses Agile quality processes and tools to track project management activities.
In Chapter 9 the author discusses his experiences with how Agile helped to solve customer dissatisfaction issues.
In Chapter 10 the author discusses strategies of how leaders should orient towards optimization.
Highlights
Chapter 1 describes the engagement model when developing software projects and why the traditional waterfall methodology doesn’t work and why there is a need of specific engagement model for offshore projects execution. It explains failure reasons related to trust, different time zones, and requirement misunderstandings, documentation and quality requirements when executing traditional ‘Waterfall’ method. Author proposes companies to use Agile, a specific methodology and the reasons why this methodology works for offshore projects. He also discusses traditional software development methodology and why it is not working to meet customer expectations. The book discusses six agile principles in detail and how this methodology can satisfy the customer as well as execution teams. It also mentions that agile principles shouldn’t be taken as strict guidelines, but tailored as per the organization’s needs for all engagements.
More…
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How to cite this review: Bheemidi, A. (2020). Managing Offshore Development Projects: An Agile Approach, book review, PM World Journal, Vol. XII, Issue VII, July. Available online at https://pmworldlibrary.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/pmwj131-Jul2023-Bheemidi-Managaing-Offshore-Development-Projects-via-Agile-book-review.pdf
About the Reviewer
Arati Bheemidi
Irving, TX, USA
Arati Bheemidi is Senior Program Manager in one of the American largest Banking Organization. She manages multiple multimillion dollar large programs in the organization leveraging agile methodology and tailoring as per the organization needs. She mentors and coaches the teams to get the optimized output and greater productivity on her teams. She has been a Project leader with 20+ years of IT/User experience delivering programs and solutions in Financial, Retail, Manufacturing, Supply Chain, Human Resources. She’s had a diverse exposure to a wide variety of technologies, with broad, practical expertise in solution architecture, design, delivery, and implementation in heterogeneous enterprise environments. She has a growth mind-set with a willingness to challenge existing design and an ability to evolve into new project delivery paradigms. She bridges gaps with project management organizations (PMOs), technical teams, business stakeholders, executives and vendors, collaborating to analyze business needs, develop project plans and schedules, and complete deliverable within deadlines and budgets. She has managed global offshore teams.
Arati can be contacted at arati.bheemidi@gmail.com
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