In today’s world and with the existing technology there should not be any excuses not to solve the problem of communication with your offshore teams. Communication, being the number one complain for most offshore engagements, is the first issue you should tackle.
Do you communicate with your offshore team by email? Do you send each other status reports and leave it at that. Do you communicate the same way with someone sitting in the next office to you? Probably not.
Encourage, if not force, you teams on both sides to communicate regularly and directly. This communication needs to be visual, not by phone or email. Only a small percentage of communication involves actual words: 7%, to be exact. In fact, 55% of communication is visual (body language, eye contact) and 38% is vocal (pitch, speed, volume, tone of voice). What this means that if you are using email (or even instant messaging) to communicate you are only operating at 7% of capacity. When done by phone you are still going at 45%.
This does not mean that you to invest in expensive video conferencing equipment. A simple webcam and a headset combined a free Skype or Google Hangouts account will allow you to achieve what you need.
For my teams (onshore and offshore) a simple webcam and a headset are as standard as a computer. On top of it we have multiple sets of HD webcams with USB extension cords combined with Plantronics USB Speakerphone/Mics. This allows us to have all meetings, regardless if its individual or groups, by using video equipment.
Technology today doesn’t leave any reasons not to use it to improve your collaboration with remote outsourcing teams. Here are few tools worth considering.
Software:
- Skype – http://www.skype.com – Lets you have a conversation with another person using video and voice. Works great from either your computer or a mobile device. Free.
- Google Hangouts – http://www.google.com/+/learnmore/hangouts/ – Lets you have a conference call with up to ten people. You can talk, chat, share screens, and collaborate. Works great on mobile devices. Free.
- ooVoo – http://www.ooVoo.com – Lets you talk to up to 12 people at once with voice and video. Free
Hardware:
- Plantronics USB Speaker/Mic – Plantronics Calistro P420 – Works great as it takes all echo out and has a build in multidirectional microphone
- Logitech HD Camera – HD C920 – great quality affordable web cam
If your communication with remote teams is high, you could consider investing in telepresence equipment for long term. Is almost like people in different locations are in the same room. But it’s expensive to buy. An option is to rent them out at both locations, if their is no business case for out rightly buying that equipment.
Another simple solution that could work is that you place an interface person in the offsite location who represents you and speaks the same language as you. And you just sync with your offsite representative on Skype or phone, a far easier challenge to deal with it.
If your communication with remote teams is high, you could consider investing in telepresence equipment for long term. Is almost like people in different locations are in the same room. But it’s expensive to buy. An option is to rent them out at both locations, if their is no business case for out rightly buying that equipment.
Another simple solution that could work is that you place an interface person in the offsite location who represents you and speaks the same language as you. And you just sync with your offsite representative on Skype or phone, a far easier challenge to deal with.
A very good read. This is very true for offshore teams who just started and trying to stretch their money to the end point of breaking and we have been there and done that way back when we started 2011. But even if we had passed that stage at bizmedian, we still use them as most of our clients are still on these technologies but who cares, its free. The real deal is how it brought 2 parties together.