Leading an offshore team

Revision as of 20:52, 21 September 2015

This article is based on an IT project which was made in a combination of onshore and offshore resources. The main point is how the offshore team was managed online from an onshore location. The complications and practices used to manage this project will be described and explained. The role of managers is changing rapidly and becoming more complex these days. This can be attributed to the diversity of people in relations of culture, language, geography, knowledge and skills. With these realities in mind, leading a team within normal conditions is a challenging task. This will only become more complex and demanding leading teams that are located on the other side of the world. It is arguably a fast paced forward tendency that companies outsource either part or entire productions in order to improve factors such as efficiency and cost among others. You can be a great leader in person which requires a set of skills necessary to motivate and lead your team, but leading a team online is a different task.

Introduction

The project described in this article is an IT project, implementing an internal Electronic Document Management System (EDMS) for a company in Denmark within the legal industry. Due to anonymity company names will be disguised in this article and cover names will be used. The legal company will be mentioned as Legal-z (LZ), whereas the main solution was delivered by the Danish company referred as ITX. ITX was using a subcontractor named as IT-sub which specializes in EDMS solutions for many types of companies. IT-sub was used as a subcontractor due to their competencies within this area, and the system would have been too extensive for ITX to develop.

The system ordered by LZ required custom modifications to fit their specific needs and work processes, resulting in a comprehensive custom development of the standard system. To save cost ITX partially used on- and offshore resources with a long-term plan using only their offshore developers from Vietnam. The purpose of this article is to describe the challenges and experiences made by leading and offshore team from an onshore location. Furthermore the article will include tools and methods which can improve the rate of success leading a team virtually without meeting the persons face to face. As mentioned the competition is increasing day to day in modern days. Companies seek multiple ways to improve quality, efficiency and cost in order to stay competitive. Looking particularly at the cost, one way is to move resources from onshore to offshore. Labour work in the IT industry is far less expensive outside of Europe without decreasing the quality or skills of the employees.

Creating, editing and using templates

You start a new template in the same way you would start an article page. The only difference is that its title must start with Template:.

Once you have made the template, for example Template:templatename, you can add {{templatename}} to the pages you want to use it on. Every page using this template uses the same boilerplate text, each time a user visits it. When the template is updated, all pages containing the template tag are automatically updated.

Alternatively, you can add {{subst:templatename}} to the pages you want to use the boilerplate text on. The system fetches a one-time copy of the template text, and substitutes it into the page, in place of the template tag. If anyone edits the template afterwards, pages that used the subst: keyword do not update. Sometimes that is what you want.

If the template you want to edit looks like {{foo}}, you would go to Template:foo to edit it. To get there, type "Template:foo" in the search box (see search), or make a wikilink like [[Template:foo]] somewhere, such as in the sandbox, and click on it.

Once you are there, just click "edit" or "edit this page" and edit it in the same way you would any other page. You can add anything you would add to a normal page, including text, images and other templates. Please be aware that your edit might affect many pages, so be cautious.

Parameters

Templates can have parameters. Instead of just the template name, like {{foo}}, a template with parameters will have additional text, separated by vertical bars (|), e.g. {{foo|July|lc=yes}}. Here July is the value of the first unnamed parameter; yes is the value of the named parameter lc. Writing the template page for a template with parameters is more complicated than for a template with no parameters. See Help:Template.

Template link template

The template link template is a simple macro template used to display a template name as a link surrounded by braces, thus showing how the template name would be used in code. Its primary use is in instruction and documentation. A short example is that the code:

{{tl|Example}}

generates

Template:Tl

FAQ

How can I find out how to use an existing template? 

To see the documentation for the template whose name is "foo", go to "Template:foo".

Can I use a template in more than one project? 

No, if you want to use it on two different language Wikipedias, for example, you would need to create it twice.

Are templates case-sensitive? 

Yes, except usually the first letter.

Can I add parameters? 

Yes, see Help:Template for instructions.

How many templates can I use in a page? 

A lot, but it depends on how they work. (In older versions you could not use the same one more than 5 times). There is a limit on the number of template expansions allowed during the creation of a page. If the templates you put on the page use other templates when they are expanded, it is possible to exceed the limit. See WP:UNNEST.

I edited the template, so why didn't the page it is used on change? 

Wikipedia and your computer both store caches – or saved copies – and don't always show you an updated page. First, try to bypass your browser's cache by pressing ⌘R or Ctrl and F5. If that fails, you need to purge the page's cache (which can be done several different ways). Perhaps the easiest way to do this is by clicking edit on the page in which the template appears, and then clicking on Save page without having changed anything – there is no need to fill in the Summary field since there will not be any history of this as a change generated.

Can I move a template to a new name? 

Yes, this works in exactly the same way as normal page moves. When a page called for inclusion is a redirect page, the redirect target is included instead.

Can I use a template within a template? 

Yes.

How do I add a new template?

You start a new template in the same way you would start a normal page. The only difference is that its title must start with Template:Code. Don't forget to document it so that other editors can use it!

Where is the manual for the programming language used to write templates?

The language inside templates is the same language as regular wiki markup, but template writers tend to use the more complex available functions such as #if: statements. See Wikipedia's Help:Template, Wikimedia's mw:Help:Template, and all of the "advanced functioning" help pages listed toward the bottom of mw:Help:Template#Links to other help pages.

Examples

• w:en:Template:stub: an often used message (at English Wikipedia).
• w:en:Template:Biological classification: a template with parameters (at English Wikipedia).
• b:en:Template:GeneralChemTOC: a horizontal menu bar (at English Wikibooks).
• w:en:Template:Underwater work: a template as a simple table with a picture (at English Wikipedia).

Wikipedia-specific help

• Help:Template (more details)
• m:Help:Templates (details from Wikimedia)
• m:Help:Advanced templates (advanced details from Wikimedia)
• Wikipedia:Template namespace (the usual namespace for templates)
• Wikipedia:Transclusion (transcluding templates)
• Wikipedia:Substitution (substituting templates)
• Wikipedia:Template messages (categorised list of links to available templates)

Template:Help navigation Template:Wikipedia technical help