|
| 1 | +## Title |
| 2 | + |
| 3 | +Outsourced Development Ecosystem |
| 4 | + |
| 5 | +## Patlet |
| 6 | + |
| 7 | +The burdens of existing contracts in an outsourced environment constraints the success of the |
| 8 | +InnerSource initiative. Outsourced companies may see this as a risky situation as they have to |
| 9 | +way to share knowledge, resources, and expertise with competitors within the mother company. |
| 10 | +The legal contracts typically forces to develop software in a very specific and silo-ed way. |
| 11 | +Redefining these rules and allowing outsourced companies would bring a more InnerSource-friendly |
| 12 | +way of working. |
| 13 | + |
| 14 | +## Problem |
| 15 | + |
| 16 | +Current outsourced environments in large corporations prevent those suppliers to work in an |
| 17 | +InnerSource way. This includes a transparent, collaborative, and community-oriented way. |
| 18 | +Beyond the implications of the cultural change, and process focus, most of the limitations are |
| 19 | +given by the existing legal framework that forces the outsourced development to charge a fee |
| 20 | +per hour and within a very specific project. There are not specific agreements to allow |
| 21 | +a collaborative way of working across the organization and across outsourced companies or contractors. |
| 22 | + |
| 23 | +## Context |
| 24 | + |
| 25 | +Large corporation with a big variety of outsourced companies and contractors that produce part |
| 26 | +of the code base of this company. Each company or contractor has its own legal contract in place |
| 27 | +that states the goals, the pricing schema, and the expected outcome and output for the organization. |
| 28 | + |
| 29 | +No collaboration happens at the outsourced company or contractor level and each of them are working |
| 30 | +in a silo-based mode with no interactions with others, but the mother company. |
| 31 | + |
| 32 | + |
| 33 | +## Forces |
| 34 | + |
| 35 | +* Legal teams and outsourced companies trying to avoid risk exposure and responsibilities. |
| 36 | +* Legal implications and responsibilities when something goes wrong. |
| 37 | +* SLAs in place forcing behaviors. |
| 38 | +* Managers losing control of the situation by having more collaboration across companies borders |
| 39 | + |
| 40 | +## Solutions |
| 41 | + |
| 42 | +* Governance model: |
| 43 | + * Better definition of who owns the code and the data produced and if possible owned by the |
| 44 | + mother company. |
| 45 | + * Definition of checks and balances of who is responsible for what action (RACI) and SLAs against PRs. |
| 46 | + * Definition of tools and processes so suppliers do not bring extra complexity to other suppliers. |
| 47 | +* Flexibility in the legal contracts to allow them to contribute with other companies, |
| 48 | + even when they are competitors. |
| 49 | + * Declaration of the supplier with other suppliers. |
| 50 | + * Onboarding new suppliers. |
| 51 | + * Relationship across developers. |
| 52 | + * Budget management. |
| 53 | +* Good practices should be enforced in the contracts with those companies or contractors. |
| 54 | + As an example: |
| 55 | + * Good documentation practices. |
| 56 | + * Code should be hosted in a collaborative platform every company and contractor is able to reach |
| 57 | + out to it |
| 58 | + * State pull request / change request as the by-default way of working and communication. |
| 59 | + * Avoid private developments and releases of tons of lines of code, keep a transparent way of |
| 60 | + across companies or contractors. |
| 61 | +* Train the mother company POs to work with several suppliers within the same project. |
| 62 | +* Define clear and fair guidelines across internal outsourced companies to avoid internal friction. |
| 63 | +* Skill up you suppliers on InnerSource practices |
| 64 | +* Resources discussions may be part of the conversation at some point, be sure to define the limitations |
| 65 | + of their interactions within other existing projects. |
| 66 | + |
| 67 | +## Resulting Context |
| 68 | + |
| 69 | +Outsourced companies and contractors are safe to collaborate with other competitors as collaboration |
| 70 | +rules are clear, common processes and tools are in place, and the legal framework of each participant |
| 71 | +allows to move into this direction. |
| 72 | + |
| 73 | + |
| 74 | + |
| 75 | +## Author(s) (optional) |
| 76 | + |
| 77 | + |
| 78 | + |
| 79 | +## Acknowledgments (optional) |
| 80 | + |
0 commit comments