November 12, 2009 at 13:59Web production development in the regions. The points of view of specialists of TOP-studios of Runet (part 1)
Today, more and more large web studios are looking towards the regions, picking up remote development teams. Why not? In the regions, in most cases, broadband Internet has appeared. The professional level of regional developers has grown. The cost of an hour, compared to Moscow, is very tempting. Regional teams, in turn, want to work on interesting, complex projects, and not conduct educational program on the topic "what is a site" in their city. So I decided to talk a little with the representatives of the top Runet studios on the topic of developing my own production in the regions in order to understand how they see cooperation with remote teams.
I hope that this material (and maybe the series) will be of interest to regional teams and everyone who cares about the development of our industry as a whole. For me, as the head of one of the Moscow web studios with experience in creating my own regional division , this topic is interesting and very relevant.
So, the first person I managed to talk to was Oksana Klimenko, production manager at RBC SOFT . The company RBC SOFT has been developing Internet solutions for more than 10 years, is one of the five best runet studios and has remote development teams in Nizhny Novgorod and St. Petersburg.
HF: Moscow is engaged in sales, management and creativity, and development is subcontracted to a regional team. Is such a model effective?
OK: This is an abstract model, everything is different in life. I can not imagine the Moscow office, which is engaged only in management and "creativity." Who should work in it? If sellers, project managers and an art director, then what is the scheme of their work? The customer came, the sales manager talked to him, formulated the task, the customer is ready to pay ... What happens next?
HF: Perhaps the art director and project manager come up with a creative idea that is being demonstrated to the client?
OK: First of all, managers need to be kept away from the “creative”. A manager is a manager; he must organize the process correctly, and not engage in creativity. Secondly, the word "creative" does not exist for me. This is an invention of marketers. In any project, it makes sense, but the person who works with information should be responsible for the meaning. And this is not an art director, but an information architect. But even he alone will do little. Only a team can come up and model a good idea.
Now imagine that this team has hands in St. Petersburg and brains in Moscow. It is unrealistic to make a technologically complex project in this situation. If the project is typical, from the series “we did this a thousand times”, and does not require intensive work of the brain for designing - it can be handed over to the regional team.
Treble: i.e. do you give “turnkey” projects to the regions that do not affect the development of something completely new?
OK: There are two categories of work that we transfer to the regions. The first is typical projects, I already spoke about them. The second - some stages of complex projects when we work with regional teams “on tasks”. Task management is partially automated and controlled by a traffic manager. Well, if a regional team is able to independently make any complex project from scratch - why do we need such a team?
HF: Is the economic component of working with a regional team effective?
OK, yes. The farther the region, the better for us. You don’t even need to analyze it - you compare the calculated rates, and everything becomes obvious. Even adjusted for the difference in qualifications of specialists.
HF: But what about the costs of communication and so on?
OK: As soon as we switched to a rigid system of setting goals, the cost of communication has greatly decreased. Instead of useless discussions about “what the client wants” and “I think it should blink and jump here”, the performer receives a short but comprehensive statement of the problem. But the way to solve it already depends on his qualifications and imagination. Perhaps small studios with a small flow of orders have time to talk. Unfortunately, we do not.
HF: What are you ready to order (order) from the regions?
OK: The entire instrumental part: programming, testing, technical design, layout, content management. Everything except design.
HF: And as for the design? There are no problems with this in the region?
OK: No. In the regions there are very good designers for specific tasks. Someone may not be able to cope with the design for the state portal, but they will make an excellent layout for the site of a car dealer. A designer, contrary to popular belief, is a much more loyal and flexible creature than, for example, a programmer. He has multivariate thinking, and therefore he adapts faster. Unlike a programmer who is trying to turn the world into a finished construction with the given properties, methods and events.
HF: What requirements, in your opinion and experience, should a regional team meet?
OK: For me it is important that the head of the team is a smart person with whom I personally will find a common language. There are, for example, sensible specialists, but muddlers. Or vice versa, mandatory and punctual, but the head does not include. I always look at the leader. If I can work with this person, I can work with his team.
HF: Are there bottlenecks, for example technological ones, that arise when working with regions?
OK: No technology. The biggest difficulty we have is that one team, for example, is very meticulous, and the second is too independent. Therefore, the first has to “chew” the task, and the second is sometimes kept from unnecessary actions. But this is a normal production process. This is not a problem, but the specifics of working with a specific team.
HF: What form of cooperation is most effective? Team rental, hourly pay, piecework?
OK: Rent is not profitable. We have most of the projects on an hourly basis - where the work goes on tasks. Piece-rate payment is advisable on projects that are fully done in the region.
HF: Why is it inefficient to keep a paycheck? After all, programmers do not like to set worked hours, to be distracted by these non-core tasks.
OK: With a fixed salary and with the best specialists, the incentive disappears. A man sits on a salary, and even if he loses Call of Duty the whole month, he will still receive a salary. And when the thickness of his wallet depends on the time actually spent on the task
- this is a completely different story.
HF: And how is the assessment going in this case? Who initially evaluates the task?
OK: Evaluates the profile leader. We had a situation when a regional programmer spent 5 times more time solving a problem than the chief programmer and the regional leader estimated. We do not work with this comrade anymore,
and the entire regional team received a penalty for failure to meet deadlines.
HF: Do all or only regions work by the hour?
OK: At the hourly rate, only regions.
HF: On average, 150 working hours per month. How many of them do the programmer work out?
OK: 100-120 hours.
HF: This is not physically possible. He spends at least 40% on communications, discussions, etc.
OK: Communication is an old, beloved excuse. Example: a manager wrote a letter to the developer for half an hour with lyrical digressions about the need to make a loan calculator. Between the breaks, the programmer read this letter and thought for a long time. Then they went to smoke together and spent another hour discussing whose kung fu is cooler. Then the manager wrote a second letter based on these discussions. The programmer read the letter again and even commented. The manager digested the comments and agreed with the customer. By evening, everyone was very tired, but the programmer never got to work. Here is what you call "communications."
HF: How to get rid of this?
OK: It is enough to formalize and automate the task setting process. A well-formulated task, containing all the data necessary for its solution, is almost a half-solved problem.
HF: Are there any key points (or people) that decide the success of a collaboration?
OK: I already answered this question. Team leader.
VCh: If you look 5-7 years ahead, how do you see the web development sector in Russia?
OK: I think that many customers and performers will finally understand that content is more important than appearance. Design will cease to be a “thing in itself” and will become a tool for the competent presentation of information. The systems on which everything will be assembled will be simplified, their number will be reduced, the development process will accelerate and become cheaper.
There is one more thing that is hard not to notice. The rapid development of mobile technology. When 70% of users prefer communicators over conventional computers, the sites in their current form will die out.
VCh: Will there be large outsourcing productions in the field of web development in Russia, the so-called production clusters? I threw the task, at the output I got a high-quality standard result. There are analogues in India, Korea and other countries.
OK: Hardly. We will never work like them. Why is India now accounting for almost half of the global IT outsourcing market? And because she has 30 years of state support for training in IT specialties and tax benefits for the entire IT sphere. Draw conclusions yourself.
PS If the material finds interest on the part of readers, we will continue conversations with studio representatives on the development of regional industries. Send your questions, comments. The theme of the development of web production in the regions and their cooperation with the center is very interesting and little disclosed. Let's share the experience.
I hope that this material (and maybe the series) will be of interest to regional teams and everyone who cares about the development of our industry as a whole. For me, as the head of one of the Moscow web studios with experience in creating my own regional division , this topic is interesting and very relevant.
So, the first person I managed to talk to was Oksana Klimenko, production manager at RBC SOFT . The company RBC SOFT has been developing Internet solutions for more than 10 years, is one of the five best runet studios and has remote development teams in Nizhny Novgorod and St. Petersburg.
HF: Moscow is engaged in sales, management and creativity, and development is subcontracted to a regional team. Is such a model effective?
OK: This is an abstract model, everything is different in life. I can not imagine the Moscow office, which is engaged only in management and "creativity." Who should work in it? If sellers, project managers and an art director, then what is the scheme of their work? The customer came, the sales manager talked to him, formulated the task, the customer is ready to pay ... What happens next?
HF: Perhaps the art director and project manager come up with a creative idea that is being demonstrated to the client?
OK: First of all, managers need to be kept away from the “creative”. A manager is a manager; he must organize the process correctly, and not engage in creativity. Secondly, the word "creative" does not exist for me. This is an invention of marketers. In any project, it makes sense, but the person who works with information should be responsible for the meaning. And this is not an art director, but an information architect. But even he alone will do little. Only a team can come up and model a good idea.
Now imagine that this team has hands in St. Petersburg and brains in Moscow. It is unrealistic to make a technologically complex project in this situation. If the project is typical, from the series “we did this a thousand times”, and does not require intensive work of the brain for designing - it can be handed over to the regional team.
Treble: i.e. do you give “turnkey” projects to the regions that do not affect the development of something completely new?
OK: There are two categories of work that we transfer to the regions. The first is typical projects, I already spoke about them. The second - some stages of complex projects when we work with regional teams “on tasks”. Task management is partially automated and controlled by a traffic manager. Well, if a regional team is able to independently make any complex project from scratch - why do we need such a team?
HF: Is the economic component of working with a regional team effective?
OK, yes. The farther the region, the better for us. You don’t even need to analyze it - you compare the calculated rates, and everything becomes obvious. Even adjusted for the difference in qualifications of specialists.
HF: But what about the costs of communication and so on?
OK: As soon as we switched to a rigid system of setting goals, the cost of communication has greatly decreased. Instead of useless discussions about “what the client wants” and “I think it should blink and jump here”, the performer receives a short but comprehensive statement of the problem. But the way to solve it already depends on his qualifications and imagination. Perhaps small studios with a small flow of orders have time to talk. Unfortunately, we do not.
HF: What are you ready to order (order) from the regions?
OK: The entire instrumental part: programming, testing, technical design, layout, content management. Everything except design.
HF: And as for the design? There are no problems with this in the region?
OK: No. In the regions there are very good designers for specific tasks. Someone may not be able to cope with the design for the state portal, but they will make an excellent layout for the site of a car dealer. A designer, contrary to popular belief, is a much more loyal and flexible creature than, for example, a programmer. He has multivariate thinking, and therefore he adapts faster. Unlike a programmer who is trying to turn the world into a finished construction with the given properties, methods and events.
HF: What requirements, in your opinion and experience, should a regional team meet?
OK: For me it is important that the head of the team is a smart person with whom I personally will find a common language. There are, for example, sensible specialists, but muddlers. Or vice versa, mandatory and punctual, but the head does not include. I always look at the leader. If I can work with this person, I can work with his team.
HF: Are there bottlenecks, for example technological ones, that arise when working with regions?
OK: No technology. The biggest difficulty we have is that one team, for example, is very meticulous, and the second is too independent. Therefore, the first has to “chew” the task, and the second is sometimes kept from unnecessary actions. But this is a normal production process. This is not a problem, but the specifics of working with a specific team.
HF: What form of cooperation is most effective? Team rental, hourly pay, piecework?
OK: Rent is not profitable. We have most of the projects on an hourly basis - where the work goes on tasks. Piece-rate payment is advisable on projects that are fully done in the region.
HF: Why is it inefficient to keep a paycheck? After all, programmers do not like to set worked hours, to be distracted by these non-core tasks.
OK: With a fixed salary and with the best specialists, the incentive disappears. A man sits on a salary, and even if he loses Call of Duty the whole month, he will still receive a salary. And when the thickness of his wallet depends on the time actually spent on the task
- this is a completely different story.
HF: And how is the assessment going in this case? Who initially evaluates the task?
OK: Evaluates the profile leader. We had a situation when a regional programmer spent 5 times more time solving a problem than the chief programmer and the regional leader estimated. We do not work with this comrade anymore,
and the entire regional team received a penalty for failure to meet deadlines.
HF: Do all or only regions work by the hour?
OK: At the hourly rate, only regions.
HF: On average, 150 working hours per month. How many of them do the programmer work out?
OK: 100-120 hours.
HF: This is not physically possible. He spends at least 40% on communications, discussions, etc.
OK: Communication is an old, beloved excuse. Example: a manager wrote a letter to the developer for half an hour with lyrical digressions about the need to make a loan calculator. Between the breaks, the programmer read this letter and thought for a long time. Then they went to smoke together and spent another hour discussing whose kung fu is cooler. Then the manager wrote a second letter based on these discussions. The programmer read the letter again and even commented. The manager digested the comments and agreed with the customer. By evening, everyone was very tired, but the programmer never got to work. Here is what you call "communications."
HF: How to get rid of this?
OK: It is enough to formalize and automate the task setting process. A well-formulated task, containing all the data necessary for its solution, is almost a half-solved problem.
HF: Are there any key points (or people) that decide the success of a collaboration?
OK: I already answered this question. Team leader.
VCh: If you look 5-7 years ahead, how do you see the web development sector in Russia?
OK: I think that many customers and performers will finally understand that content is more important than appearance. Design will cease to be a “thing in itself” and will become a tool for the competent presentation of information. The systems on which everything will be assembled will be simplified, their number will be reduced, the development process will accelerate and become cheaper.
There is one more thing that is hard not to notice. The rapid development of mobile technology. When 70% of users prefer communicators over conventional computers, the sites in their current form will die out.
VCh: Will there be large outsourcing productions in the field of web development in Russia, the so-called production clusters? I threw the task, at the output I got a high-quality standard result. There are analogues in India, Korea and other countries.
OK: Hardly. We will never work like them. Why is India now accounting for almost half of the global IT outsourcing market? And because she has 30 years of state support for training in IT specialties and tax benefits for the entire IT sphere. Draw conclusions yourself.
PS If the material finds interest on the part of readers, we will continue conversations with studio representatives on the development of regional industries. Send your questions, comments. The theme of the development of web production in the regions and their cooperation with the center is very interesting and little disclosed. Let's share the experience.