Outsourcing in Project Management: Best Practices

This article discusses the importance of outsourcing in project management and outlines six best practices for successful outsourcing, including defined procedures, team building, conflict management, status updates, co-location, and fair contracts.

Slide 1: introduction
Outsourcing can be defined as a business practice where a company gets hired by another
company or a specific individual for performing various tasks, provide services or handle
operations that are to be executed or have been done previously by employees of the same
company. Outsourcing is a common feature used by numerous organizations. Outsourcing
provides ability to deliver works to people. It helps in engaging resources in various shifts which
can support all the work days.
Outsourcing in a project is an important factor in a project because not all the employees
in a single organization are capable of doing tasks belonging to various fields. like an
organization that deals with selling products through an online website usually involve in
verifying the quality and availability of the products, they would not be acquainted with the IT
tasks related to the website of the company, hence it is necessary for the organization to
outsource their activities related to their website management.
The six practices that should be followed during outsourcing projects include Properly
defined procedures and requirements, Extensive team building and training activities,
Established processes of conflict management, Status updates and frequent review, Co-location
when required, Intensive laden and fair contracts.
Slide 2:
Convincing people that belong to various professions, cultures and organizations for
working together is tough. Successful organizations are even more careful while they select the
part of work they needs to be outsourced. They prefer to outsource the works that have clear
deliverables along with outcomes that are measurable.

Communicating the requirements can cause trouble especially when foreign providers are
involved in it. Example is that when contractors hire various electric firms for installing air
conditioning system. Electronic firms make use of design firms in order to fabricate enclosure
for various products; teams involved in software development outsource the testing of various
versions of programs. The six practices that should be followed during outsourcing projects
include Properly defined procedures and requirements, Extensive team building and training
activities, Established processes of conflict management, Status updates and frequent review,
Co-location when required, Intensive laden and fair contracts.
Slide 3:
Training is must for the employees who deal with outsourcing activities. Very often
managers stay occupied with various plans as well as various technical challenges regarding the
project and think that issues with people would work with time. Employees are needed to be
trained in order to work effectively and efficiently.
Slide 4:
Conflicts occur when employees belonging to different culture, organization and with
different perspectives come along and work together. This leads to problems in the entire system
and also causes delay in delivering the overall work. Conflict occurs because people have
different opinions and perspectives, this might clash and cause problems within the employees.
Conflict management is an important part of outsourcing. Without conflict management,
outsourcing cannot be carried out efficiently.
Slide 5:

This practice provides a specific forum for identifying various problems not just with the
project but also with relationships in the work environment.
Comparing surveys might also help in tracking if the process is lagging behind. Gaining
reviews from employees would help the team to improve cooperation and team work among
them. Comparing the surveys time to time would permit the tracking of areas where the work has
improved. Reviews should be obtained from employees for gaining knowledge regarding their
cooperation and involvement.
Slide 6:
Co-location reduces friction among the organizations. various smart companies rent the
required accommodations so that the key personnel can work together. Face to face interact is
required in order to clear all doubts or misunderstandings. This practice is less relevant for work
that does not need coordination among professionals from numerous organizations.
Slide 7:
Instead of trying new and promising technique which might reduce costs that contractors
would avoid various risks as well as apply true and tried methods for meeting contracted
requirements. Fair contracts should be followed by organizations in order to satisfy the
employees of both the sides. Performance based contracts where incentives are included on the
basis of priorities of project are being more popular in the aspect of outsourcing. Companies
realize that contracts have the ability to discourage improvement as well as innovation.