oDesk Freelancer Stats and Mashups
A few posts ago I mentioned a report covering some insights on international freelancing community that was made available by oDesk. Sine then I had a chance to take a deeper look at oConomy and found information there even more interesting and insightful. oDesk did a great job on presenting freelancer statistics in chats and Google mashups.
Of course when it comes to picking an offshoring destination freelancing data needs to be taken with a grain of salt. In particular a freelancer’s rate is a product of many criteria and only portion of those are locale-dependant. Freelancing through aggregators / monster boards like oDesk is still in its early stage, over time the rates and other stats will have a greater degree of correlation to local salaries, availability, etc. However, even today, these figures provide an interesting reference in terms of understanding the local dynamics. Let’s take for example geo distribution for Russia vs. population and rank for top 10 cities on oDesk list:
| oDesk Rank | City | Number of Providers | Average Charge Rate | Average User Score | Population | Rank |
| 1 | Moscow | 486 | $19.39 | 4.21 | 10,470,318 | 1 |
| 2 | Omsk | 444 | $16.12 | 4.28 | 1,134,016 | 7 |
| 3 | Taganrog | 207 | $15.82 | 4.28 | 281,947 | 66 |
| 4 | Saint Petersburg | 200 | $17.76 | 3.69 | 4,661,219 | 2 |
| 5 | Novosibirsk | 121 | $16.75 | 4.34 | 1,425,508 | 3 |
| 6 | Tomsk | 98 | $15.83 | 3.99 | 487,838 | 34 |
| 7 | Rostov-on-Don | 69 | $15.28 | 4.15 | 1,068,267 | 10 |
| 8 | Nizhniy Novgorod | 44 | $15.11 | 3.28 | 1,311,252 | 4 |
| 9 | Smolensk | 34 | $14.24 | 3.54 | 325,137 | 56 |
| 10 | Irkutsk | 32 | $24.13 | 4.62 | 593,604 | 24 |
As you can see the figures are somewhat counterintuitive. Take for example Taganrog a small city in the same region as Rostov-on-Don which is roughly 3 times bigger and considerably richer as well, yet freelancer community is 6 times the size of Rostov-on-Don’s. Taganrog is even ahead of Russia’s second largest city Saint Petersburg. Most likely these figures confirm that freelancing community’s embrace of oDesk services is in its humble beginnings and that more business will flow to companies like oDesk, Guru, eLance and others.
I hope oDesk keeps oConomy live and updated with the latest info, it would be also great to see their competitors to follow in suite.
Offshore Communication Strategy Basics
Communications is one of the main factors in any sizable IT effort, and for offshore engagements it’s impossible to overstate the value and importance of it. How the communications are planned, maintained and controlled depends on variety of factors: size of the engagement, SDLC and project management methodology, organizational maturity on both sides, time zone differences, complexity of domain or technology just to name a few.
The first step in ensuring solid communications is planning. The communications plan should outline all the most important components of the process, media, participating parties, etc. I prefer to use PMP style communication plans even for small engagements. It doesn’t mean that you should establish PMO structure and write 10 page meeting notes after every phone call, you only need to take some standard template and adjust it for your specific case. Here is an example how a meetings section of a simplified communication plan might look:
| Meeting | Frequency / Schedule | Media | Participant | Run By | Description / agenda Guideline | Duration |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Daily Status Call | Daily, 9:00 AM PDT | Skype | All team members | Team Lead, TBD | For each team member
1. Status updates for the previous period (since last meeting) |
< 30 Min |
| Weekly Status | Weekly, Monday at 11:00 AM PDT |
Skype | Offshore team SPOC
On-site team SPOC |
Offshore SPOC | 1. High-level status review2. For each project / initiative a. Status updates for the previous period (since last meeting) b. Tasks planned for the next period c. Any impediments associated with execution of the tasks going forward 3. Other, as needed a. Specific Items b. Risk & Risk Mitigation |
< 1 Hr |
| Monthly Status | Last Thursday of the Month, 11:00 AM PDT | Skype | All team members | Offshore SPOC | 1. High-level status review2. Other, as needed a. Specific Items / Announcements b. High & Lows 3. Q & A |
< 1 Hr |
| Account Review | Last Friday of the Quarter, 11:00 AM PDT | Face to Face / Skype | Account Manager, Others TBD | Account Manager | 1. High-level status review2. Other, as needed a. Specific Items / Announcements b. High & Lows 3. Q & A |
< 1 Hr |
The next thing is getting the plan to work. That is more difficult than it appears. Communications as any other process have a tendency to deteriorate unless enforced and controlled. Small ad hoc changes, canceling meetings for convenience or scheduling constraints, and focus of executive sponsors drifting away accumulate resulting in communications break down and a domino effect on multiple aspects of the engagement. That is a common problem across the industry and offshore only aggravates it.
There is no panacea or one-fit-all solution for keeping communications intact and maintaining their quality. Below are a few tips to consider:
- Consider steering committee / PMO structure or some other org structure with the sole / prime objective of governing the engagement.
- Audit activities, if size of the engagement allows, consider dedicated auditing group. Dedicated auditing is fairly expensive proposition, one of the easiest way of doing it using a third party perform the audits. Engaging outsourcing advisors for these activities could work out quite well.
- Consider a dedicated offshore manager; a person responsible for all aspects of the offshore activities. The person should have very solid PM/PMO skills, in-depth understanding of the processes such as SDLC, strong knowledge of the domain, and of course understanding of the offshore.
The items above could increase the engagement overhead and consequently the total cost of outsourcing quite substantially and they do not scale down beyond certain point. Whether you consider them or now you should put regular communication tools in place, here are some examples:
- Project Wiki and/or dashboard. That’s a great helper with relatively low support overhead. Some vendors offer such tools as part of their offering. I consider that big value-add. In case vendor doesn’t offer the out-of-box project dashboard you should build one using some open source wiki, Sharepoint or any tool you are familiar with.
- Time tracking. While not a communication tool and bane of existence for people on the team Time Tracking is unbeatable control tool that offers insights in the time allocation and forces you to communicate when any odd behavior is detected.
- IM tools with VoIP features, in particular I recommend Skype. The value of instant access to resources is difficult to overestimate.
- Open group chats using Skype or other IM technologies. A great way to stay abreast of what’s going on the project, pick up important communication breakdown clues, control information flow.
- There are plenty of great team collaboration tools starting with fairly simple ones like google docs or basecamp and all the way to high end enterprise style applications.
The tools will not prevent communication breakdowns, they will help you control the flow and make them much less frequent and hopefully less damaging.
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