Outsourcing Analysis Worksheet for Project <name>

Category Relative
Project
Weight Weight Category Rating
35 Project Complexity and Interaction
10 The product does not involve developing critical or strategic code that would better be done in-house.
10 code.
5 The project is not highly innovative or exploratory.
5 The project will not require extensive interactions and iterations for user interface design.
5 It won't be difficult or expensive to set up the correct development environment at the supplier site.
5 The project is not time critical.
10 Project interfaces to other efforts are minimal.
5 You can arrange for sufficient transfer of specialized skills and knowledge to enable your team to support the product.
Your team members will be able to acquire enough knowledge about the internals of the product that they can
5 efficiently modify, correct, and enhance it.
5 The project’s business and technical goals, risks, and constraints are well understood and documented.
5 You can specify the product requirements clearly enough to ensure that you get what you need.
The project’s requirements, technologies, and risks are sufficiently well understood that you can evaluate whether a
5 supplier’s estimates and commitments are realistic and achievable.
5 The product requirements are likely to be stable over the development time.
10 The product's underlying hardware and software platforms are likely to be stable over the development time.
10 You can define objective and unambiguous product acceptance criteria and performance goals.
100 Subtotal 0.0

45 Acquirer Readiness
10 You have insufficient staff available to do the project in-house in the needed time frame.
10 The project provides an opportunity for your team members to learn new skills from the supplier’s staff.
10 The development and operation environments are likely to be stable over the development time.
5 You wish to be able to associate your product with a known and well-respected supplier.
10 You have internal buy-in for outsourcing.
10 Internal key personnel are available to support the outsourcing.
10 Outsourcing processes are defined.
5 Developmental standards are in place.
10 Project type (development, testing, porting, etc.) is consistent with the acquirer's outsourcing guidelines.
10 Project size is consistent with the acquirer's outsourcing guidelines.
10 There are no legal or contractual restrictions on outsourcing this type of work to a foreign supplier.
100 Subtotal 0.0

20 Supplier Preparedness (these apply more specifically when evaluating specific vendors)
15 A supplier with domain expertise exists.
10 Suppliers having previous experience with the acquirer exists.
10 A supplier can start the project earlier than you could if you did it in-house.
15 A supplier can complete the project faster than your team could.
20 A supplier can complete the project more cheaply than your team could.
15 A supplier can produce a higher quality product than your team could.
15 The project requires technical skills or technologies that your staff does not have, but a supplier staff does have.
100 Subtotal 0.0

100 Overall Score 0.0

This spreadsheet lets you analyze a project that you are considering outsourcing
for development by a supplier to assess how suitable the project is for oursourcing.

The spreadsheet contains several statements about the project organized into three
broad categories - project complexity and interaction, acquirer readiness, and
supplier preparedness. First you need to weight these three broad catagories. Default
weighting is provided. These weights must total 100. Next you need to weight the
line items within each of the three catagories. Again, within each category default
weights are provided and they must total 100 within each category. The weighting
should reflect the relative importance to helping you in deciding
whether or not to outsource the project.

Use the same weights for all projects that you evaluate using this worksheet,
so that you can compare the results. A weight of 0 will remove that statement
from the analysis entirely.

Next, you need to rate each statement as to the extent to which the statement
is true for the project you are analyzing. Use a scale of 0 to 5 for each rating.
A rating of 0 means the statement is completely false, and a rating of 5 means
the statement is absolutely true. For example, consider the statement
"The product requirements are likely to be stable over the development time."
If you anticipate no change in the requirements at all, rate that statement a 5.
If you anticipate some change, give it a rating of about 3. If you expect
the requirements to be changing frequently or you know that the initial
requirements are quite incomplete, give it a rating of 0 or 1. This indicates
that that project is not as suitable for outsourcing as is a project with more
stable requirements.

The spreadsheet will calculate a Total score for each project as you enter the
ratings. This will range from 0 to 100 points. A project that receives a higher
total score is more suitable for outsourcing than a project having a lower score.