Don't shoot the Onsite PM: he's just the messenger?!
I was recently consulting with a client of ours in Toronto and got chatting with the client’s admin manager who handled paperwork, logistics, and management etc for the CIO. We were talking about my end-date and termination of my access to their systems, firewall etc and she remarked that I was about the 38th person from Infosys to be working onsite at their office in 3 years. I remarked that the only common thread was the resident onsite Project Manager -- Let's call him Sam -- who handled all administrative, logistical and management issues from our end.
Sam’s responsibilities were varied, starting from identifying the request for needs, to onsite travel for Infosys techies, to arranging visa invitation letters to coordinating with the client’s managers on logistics when the new person arrived ...or someone departed. Ensuring that the offshore teams produced the required deliverables for him to get a client signoff was among his responsibilities, which included invoicing and ensuring billing for the work done.
One day I was an observer at an internal meeting chaired by Sam that got quite animated. The issue on hand was the client had postpone the User Acceptance Test (UAT) by a few months due to some internal scheduling conflicts and wanted to release our onsite folks allocated for the tasks since they wanted to reduce costs (understandable!) Sam, the onsite manager was having to explain to the expatriate test specialists that their onsite engagement was abruptly ending in two days intend of the scheduled two months.
Though the testers understood the “business significance” of the move, they were unnerved nevertheless. Their personal schedules, plans and logistics were in a disarray and it wasn’t just a monitory issue since the policies in place would compensate them for any loss due to short-term travel, lease breakage of accommodation etc. An online request and follow-up call would ensure that their return tickets and paperwork would be arranged by the travel-desk.
While trying hard to keep the discussion veered around their professional concerns, they wanted to express their personal disappointment over the abrupt change too. Well, what about their desire to enjoy the ‘white christmas’ in Toronto…or the New Year’s eve here? The techies were not in a position to express such personal desires or plans and though the manager understood where they were coming from. The techies also realized that Sam was just the messenger, conveying the dictates of business and stakeholders.
Though traveling at short notice, living out of a suitcase (literally) and being flexible to the demands of the business, and clients’ needs are a part of a global software professional’s life, the yin-yang of personal desires and business drivers that needs to constantly be balanced. I have seen and experienced several such incidents over the years -- and also mentioned some case-studies in my book – but sometimes reflect if everything we do is about the business needs? What is the right answer?....I guess “it depends”
Footnote: To his credit, Sam, in this instance was able to sound his peers in the Toronto development center of our company looking for software testing professionals and was able to refer them to a new assignment without having to immediately travel back to India.
Yet another Merry Christmas and a happy New Year.....!
Comments
It seems to me that offshore workers are often treated as "resources" rather than people, to an extent even greater than onshore workers receive. It will be interesting to see if that changes in the near future, or if the pursuit of "global wage arbitrage" will continue to propogate a dehumanizing mindset in American companies.
Posted by: Henry Jenkins | January 2, 2007 03:11 AM
The question you put has the answer embedded in it. What else than the "business need"? Business need from both the outsourcer and the delivery vendor engaged in it. "Cost arbitrage" is the pillar for this IT business at both ends till we graduate in terms of "value adds" from current transactory to strategic partner relationship.
Posted by: Abhiraj | January 30, 2007 12:28 PM