A couple days ago my first full size book went into beta and is now available at the publisher website – http://pragprog.com/book/nkout/outsource-it. I feel very happy and relieved that the book is finally out, writing it was far more challenging than I’ve ever anticipated. At the same time I feel happy and proud, proud to be one of the authors of the pragmatic bookshelf, the group of technology writers that earned respect across very broad and demanding technical audience. It will take a little while before the book hits the shelves of Amazon and other bookstores, but you don’t have to wait and get your […]

A friend of mine send me an English-Russian joke that been migrating from email to email. I thought it was quite funny and wanted to share, while it is just a joke it has some sad truth to it. The joke is Russian specific yet its point is still reads loud and clear. As you know people judge what you said based not on what you said but based on what they heard / understood. When you say something to a developer for whom English is a second language and see a nod you might think that you were understood, well read examples below and […]

In the stream of holiday mail an email from an old friend of mine stood out with its unusual greeting: “Hell Nick!” The missing “o” reminded me of many written and oral blunders I generated over the years and probably continue to without even knowing. I arrived in the states in ‘91 with practically no knowledge of English. By the mid 90s my English skills progressed a bit; I also moved up from a back office developer to more managerial / client facing roles, so the demand on the skills quadrupled. Thanks to language tapes and a lot of time behind a steering wheel I […]

This post is a rude reminder to all of us involved in outsourcing. Just a few weeks ago I talked about fundamental laws of outsourcing (FLO). And yet I just escaped from being hit hard by one of them, the ominous Second FLO, by the skin of my teeth.  Quick note – the second FLO as the same as the second law of thermodynamic – entropy always increases. In offshore outsourcing the second FLO exhibits itself as consistent degradation of quality of services in absence of non-stop energy applied from the on-shore. In this particular case it was about sourcing. I have an agreement with […]

I was fairly certain that an offshore development company with majority of their staff in St. Petersburg, Russia was the best choice for a large scale initiative for my company. The decision came after complex vendor selection process which included on-site visits, marathon interviews, long and pricy MSA negotiations, etc. I hang up the phone after final discussion with the CEO and smiled. I liked the team in Russia, some of the guys I met there were at par with my best developers in-house, I was happy with the location as it was offering a cure for my nostalgia, and I was proud to be […]