In addition to the challenge of adopting Agile practices inside a company, many organizations adds another level of difficulty by outsourcing some of their development activities. In this blog post, Juan Banda provides an extensive experience report on outsourcing Agile with practical advice from somebody who’s been on the other side of the phone in an outsourced Agile team.
It aims to provide some insights about what to expect when you plan to outsource work and how to take two not-so-Agile teams to a level of cultural alignment that enable them to work effectively. He uses the The Schneider Model already used by Michael Sahota in his article How to Make Your Culture Work with Agile, Kanban & Software Craftsmanship. This model provides good foundation for assessing the type of culture of both organizations with four quadrants that are Collaboration, Control, Cultivation and Competence.
Assessing the culture of both organizations allows to understand more clearly the risks associated with this process. Juan Banda shares some of his experience with outsourcing in these four different cultural contexts. He concludes that you have more chances to succeed in your outsourcing process if you look for a provider that has a similar culture than yours. Mismatching cultures is hard and costly to correct. Cultural alignment facilitates work in both ends; fostering communication and helping to grow good teams.