offshore development methodology

The offshore development process usually begins at the customer's site. A team of analysts led by a Project Manager carry out the initial requirements definition and analysis in consultation with the customer. The design, development, and testing phases are carried out at the offshore development center with a larger team. The acceptance testing, implementation, installation, and user training are done at the customer's site. On an average 70% of the total effort is done offshore and 30% onsite.

An outline of steps involved in offshore models is:

• A Project Manager from the development team and a Project Coordinator from the customer's end are nominated to oversee the entire project.
• To start with, the Project Manager and a team of engineers from Mysphere Infotech UK Ltd gets in touch with the customer's office to establish rapport with the Project Coordinator, discuss, understand and document requirements, establish communication protocol and finalize reporting format and frequency. It is absolutely necessary that the Project Manager and his team gain an in-depth understanding of the requirements and communicate the customer's vision of the application back to the offshore center.
• Once the initial requirements have been understood, the customer's design approach, development and testing standards and norms for acceptance, if any, are studied. A detailed project plan that entails the resources for the project, duration of the project, milestones and deliverables to be achieved is prepared.
• While the Project Manager and the majority of his team return with the above information and prepare a project prototype, architecture and detail design for the customer's approval.
• Once the customer has signed off on the requirements and prototype, the core development team gets going on the work. Constant interactions between the project manager and the onsite coordinator enable quick clarification of any doubts.
• Upon completion of the project, Mysphere Infotech UK Ltd team will carry out the implementation and installation of the project at the customer's site.

In certain cases, some amount of preliminary design is completed onsite during the Project Manager's visit. Subsequently, the development and testing take place.

In many cases, the various steps mentioned above overlap, compressing the total time. The project as envisaged could include onsite installation and implementation support followed by offshore maintenance.