Project Management Concepts: Best Practices in Outsourcing

This report delves into the realm of project management, specifically focusing on the concept of outsourcing. It defines outsourcing as the transfer of various business processes to external entities, often foreign companies. The report then explores best practices for outsourcing project work, including the importance of well-defined procedures and requirements, extensive team building and training activities, established processes for conflict management, regular status updates and frequent reviews, co-location when required, and intensive, fair contracts. The report emphasizes the collaborative nature of successful outsourcing, highlighting the need for a partnership approach rather than a master-slave dynamic. It concludes by summarizing the discussed practices and their collective contribution to project success. The report draws upon various academic sources to support its arguments and provide a comprehensive overview of the topic.

Running head: PROJECT MANAGEMENT CONCEPTS
PROJECT MANAGEMENT CONCEPTS
Name of Student
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Author’s Note

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Table of Contents
Introduction..........................................................................................................................2
Discussion............................................................................................................................2
Properly defined procedures and requirements...............................................................2
Extensive team building and training activities...............................................................3
Established processes of conflict management................................................................3
Status updates and frequent review.................................................................................3
Co-location when required..............................................................................................3
Intensive laden and fair contracts....................................................................................4
Conclusion...........................................................................................................................4
References............................................................................................................................5

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Introduction
The term outsourcing is traditionally used for transferring various business processes or
functions like IT accounting, customer support and many more to others. The companies to
whom these functions are provided are usually foreign companies (Ahmed 2018). An example of
this is suppose an organization is facing a problem in their internet connection so they call the
internet provider, they would supposedly talk to the technician in Bucharest Romania, Bangalore
or any other place. This assignment discusses regarding outsourcing, it further discusses
regarding various best ways by which outsourcing of project work can be done using best
practices.
Discussion
Outsourcing is applied for the purpose of contracting various chunks of the project work.
For example, Dell and HP work with numerous manufacturers that are concerned with hard
drives in order to develop laptops of next generation (Brinkkemper and Jansen 2016). Toyota
and many other companies collaborate with various suppliers in order to develop platform for
new automobiles. Outsourcing project work can be done by following various practices, some
best practices in outsourcing
Properly defined procedures and requirements: convincing people belonging to
different organizations, cultures or professions is very challenging. This practice includes
mentioning of deliverables and necessities of the task that has to be outsourced in details. In this
practice, the requirements in terms of technical works need to be spelled out but in various firms,
the systems of project management work with organizations that are less developed (Erdogmus,

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Czermak and Baumsteiger 2018). Best organizations deal with issues instantly instead of waiting
for the problems to enlarge.
Extensive team building and training activities: in this practice effective team is
build that includes people from various firms like architects, engineers, specialists, lawyers,
specialists and many more staffs. The specialists are also provided with proper training which
includes knowledge regarding ways to deal with employees belonging to different firms. The
design and length of sessions on team building would depend on the commitment, experience as
well as level of skills of participants.
Established processes of conflict management: outsourced projects are very likely
to face conflicts because people are not used to working with people having different
perspectives and values (Nduwimfura and Zheng 2015). In case of any conflict, employees are
well trained for managing the conflict. People that are dependent on each other, analyze potential
problems which might occur as well as agree on ways these problems can be resolved.
Status updates and frequent review: in this practice the entire work of outsourcing
is monitored and analyzed if there are any problems in the system. The overall process is
reviewed very frequently because if a single issue is ignored, it might cause problems for
organizations. this practice provides a forum that is used to identify problems regarding the
project as well as relationship in the working environment. They are identified so that the issues
can be resolved appropriate and quickly.
Co-location when required: this practice helps in overcoming intern organizational
friction. This is carried out in order to hold people from various organizations for working in a
single project. This practice requires a high degree of interaction among people (Oshri, Kotlarsky

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and Willcocks 2015). This is necessary to coordinate activities and overcome difficult problems
along with forming a similar bond. Co-location is rarely relevant for works that are independent
and do not require coordination among professionals that belong to different organizations. this
is relevant to complex projects where close collaboration from various parties is necessary for
being successful.
Intensive laden and fair contracts: while negotiation of contracts, usually it is the
goal to attain a fair deal for everyone that is involved. Managers recognize that cooperation and
cohesion is undermined if a single person feels that he is not well treated by people. Contracts
that are usually performance based where incentives are established on the basis of importance of
projects are usually very popular during outsourcing (Schniederjans, Schniederjans and
Schniederjans 2015). Companies usually recognize that contracts are able to discourage
improvements as well as innovation without trying new and promising strategies that may
decrease costs; contracts would avoid the issues and utilize true processes for meeting
requirements of contracts.
Conclusion
From the above report it can be concluded that the concept of outsourcing reveals a
theme of how various firms transfer their work to other firms. In this, all the practices work as
partners and not as master- slave relationship. All of them share an ultimate goal that would be
used in making a project successful. The report discusses regarding various practices of
outsourcing in details.

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References
Ahmed, M.N., 2018. Outsourcing relationship management: accounting in the decision
mix. Journal of Business Strategy, 39(5), pp.41-49.
Brinkkemper, S. and Jansen, S., 2016. Collaboration in outsourcing: A journey to quality.
Springer.
Erdogmus, T., Czermak, M., Baumsteiger, D., Kohn, D., Boller-Hoffecker, A., Schmidt, N. and
Linden, R., 2018. How to support clients and vendors in IT outsourcing engagements: the
different roles of third-party advisory services. Journal of Information Technology Teaching
Cases, 8(2), pp.184-191.
Nduwimfura, P. and Zheng, J., 2015. A Review of Risk Management for Information Systems
Outsourcing. International Journal of Business, Humanities and Technology, 5 (4), pp.28-33.
Oshri, I., Kotlarsky, J. and Willcocks, L.P., 2015. The Handbook of Global Outsourcing and
Offshoring 3rd Edition. Springer.
Schniederjans, M.J., Schniederjans, A.M. and Schniederjans, D.G., 2015. Outsourcing and
insourcing in an international context. Routledge.