I have no experience with outsourcing development work, at least not much, but a lot with outsourcing logistics. And one thing I realized was, that providers are a lot like children. They try to push every limit to find out with what they can get away with. And once precendence is established, it is ny impossible to reign them back in. I remeber one provider, operating under a cost-plus model, that invoiced us the catering. Plus margin and overhead. Yet, another one conducted a full inventory count without any additional costs because he didn't like hs own inventory quality.
I can be a difficult customer work with, especially in the beginning, but I firmly belive that letting service providers run by themselves in the beginning, after having clrealy communictaed expectations and guidelines. And to step in really hard the first moment something goes wrong. Worked out pretty well in the long run as expectations became crytal clear early on. And any deviations have been addressed when they happened, so norisk of misunderstandings.
that being said, it's a people business. And just because one approach worked in one case doesn't mean its gona work in a different situation.
I can be a difficult customer work with, especially in the beginning, but I firmly belive that letting service providers run by themselves in the beginning, after having clrealy communictaed expectations and guidelines. And to step in really hard the first moment something goes wrong. Worked out pretty well in the long run as expectations became crytal clear early on. And any deviations have been addressed when they happened, so norisk of misunderstandings.
that being said, it's a people business. And just because one approach worked in one case doesn't mean its gona work in a different situation.