Working with Offshore Contractors

One of the keys to working with offshore contractors, especially in India, is to have one of their employees based at your facility in the US. This person should have technical, project management, and good communication skills. He or she acts as a liaison between the teams at the customer and contractor companies. It's been shown repeatedly that a contractor employee communicates with other contractor employees much better than a customer does. You pay onshore rates for that liaison, but it could mean the difference between success and failure in an offshore contractor engagement.

Hiring Program Managers

Very often, when hiring program managers, too much emphasis is put on industry experience. For instance, I've seen hiring managers at a telecommunications company refuse to hire highly talented program managers with relevant experience in software program management for a software program management position due to lack of telecommunications experience.