Recently I've run into a lot of discussions about how to run a BOT business. Managing a BOT can pose a lot of issues if you don't respect some basic rules that you establish well ahead. Like with any other offshoring model, you need to have some expectations set from it.
I am thinking of multiple points to be well defined ahead. I would start by setting an objective about team size to be reached in a period of time, and how you would get there (recruitment process, selection, ramping up).
Next, I would think about the types of projects that could be safely handed over to the BOT team, without putting at risk the high visibility projects.
I would also consider having one key person managing the entire BOT, one person that I trust and that could be hired by my company, rather than the service provider.
And to make a long story short, here is a very good link that talks about a particular case, really-really interesting:
http://www.sourcingmag.com/content/c060320a.asp
A few months ago, my team was gearing up to launch a new automation tool for case assignment - a project that is key for the future, and also were we spent so much energy into. We spent weeks identifying scenarios, testing in a dev environment, and reflecting on potential issues. We wrote crystal-clear documentation and worked with a rockstar team of developers, testers, and communicators. We thought we had every base covered. But when launch day arrived, chaos ensued. The tool hit snags that never showed up in testing - edge cases we hadn’t anticipated. Worse, some team members seemed blindsided by the changes, despite our efforts to keep everyone in the loop. It was a classic “complex failure,” as Amy C. Edmondson describes in her book Right Kind of Wrong: The Science of Failing Well . Complex failures, Edmondson explains, aren’t the result of one person’s mistake or a single oversight. They happen in intricate systems where multiple factors - technology, human behavior, and unexpe...
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