The architect shall be thy savior...!!!

“When we are outsourcing software projects to India, we are not looking at cheaper rates. We are looking at credibility.” And that’s a truth. Credibility in delivery, quality and scalability. Its credibility that really makes software more economical. I have been working in the consulting business for over 3 years now and what I have noticed is there is a bit of lack of credibility in the consulting business these days... in fact the business module is changing in such a way that businesses don’t want to deliver quality products. Of course this is not what they are ever going to admit, but that’s how it works.

“I don’t want to write code to test my code”. Most of the outsourced projects are based on the fixed bid system and the only way to maintain margins is to deliver as early as possible. This means the estimates are extremely tight. Simple best practices like writing automated test cases, re-factoring, etc are ignored and the quality of the deliverables suffers. The margins are kept and then later on when the client has issues with the product, a new maintenance project is initiated.

“There is money in the maintenance business”. I was talking to a colleague who happens to be a middle management guy and he insinuated towards saying that delivering below average quality product was intentional or else the company loses on maintenance. He was talking to me saying we don’t really require technical architects and technology people much in the consulting business for this very reason. I had a pretty long debate with him regarding this.

“The consulting business needs spectacles”. It is simple. We are no longer the only country that provides outsourcing and consulting services to the “Big Client” viz. USA. China is coming up as a big threat with its large developer population. Once they bridge the communication and the language barrier, they would be a major threat. Not only the Asia Pacific region, Germany and Russia and some other European nations are also coming up really fast as outsourcing service providers. If we want to compete with them and maintain a respectable stature in the consulting business we will have to give the clients credibility. Not just in delivery but in quality, availability and scalability of our products. There is more money in the maintenance projects. But wouldn’t it be a very short sighted view of the world? The clients that outsource projects to countries like India can see what’s happening. If it is lucrative for us, it is not so lucrative for them and eventually they are going to go for countries that deliver credible products.

“I hate the code editor; I love Office Outlook and Office Excel”. Besides that I met a guy at my gym and he told me that he is working for one of the biggest consulting companies in India (Name withheld) today, has 2 years of experience and wants to move into management. He says he is already quite done with programming and doesn’t want to go into the technical arena. Majority of the developers want to move into management as quickly as possible and nobody really wants to work on technology or on the architecture side. Because there is more money in management.

“An architect? But we are into software construction not building construction…!” The consulting business today needs to take roles like technical architect and technology specialists more seriously. These are the people who can foster best practices, provide quality technology solutions and save the industry from going down into the depths of hell.

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