VIENNAPMS - the right tool for Offshore Outsourcing

(SANEPR.com) April 6, 2009 -- VIENNA PMS is being used by VIENNA Solutions for management of its offshore development centre. It has been developed to plan and control the offshore development location, but obviously also useful for onshore projects. It is a great tool for managing the processes in the development. I will describe the process from the point of view of an offshore outsourcing organisation. It works with the following process(More information on http://www.viennasolutions.com):

1. Creation of a Project: After receiving a project from a client, we create the client and an offshore development project. Outsourcing Project Creation, Project Manager Assignment, Planned Budget, Planned Start and End Date and some basic information. If you like to fix some milestones or modules, it can optionally be done. In Offshore Outsourcing projects, the transparency is very important, so the client gets a user name and password and can logon to the system to check the project status anytime. So, always happy clients :)

2. Creation of Tasks: The tasks are created with an estimated time frame. The tasks are being sent through workflow to the admin or the project sponsor. He/she can approve, reject or send back the task for modification. It gets back to the PM who can modify the task or the time planned on the task.

3. Assignment: After approval of the project, the tasks can be assigned to the resources and a deadline can be calculated. Global settings allow the scheduling as per constraints like holidays, working hours, leaves, engagement in other projects, etc. After assignment the resources can see the tasks in their dashboard. The client in offshore outsourcing development projects want to track the project in detail, which task is assigned to how many resources and obviously the whole assignments and the project plan.

4. Time recording: Time recording can be done by the developers on the tasks. On time and material outsourcing projects, it is useful for the client to see how much time has been recorded by the developers on particular tasks. The developers can write comments and / or upload files.
The developers can mark the task as completed. It is shown to the client as completed, after the Project Manager approves the task completion in his dashboard. Trust is good, controlling is better.

5. Quality: If the Project Manager wants the task to be checked by the quality department, he/she can forward the task to the responsible quality executive. Testcases to a project can be created and bugs can be recorded to the tasks. (this is for the quality evaluation of the developers) We have wonderful reports on the efficiency and quality of the developers :) Great thing for risk free Offshore Outsourcing projects.

If the project manager does not want to send it to quality, then he /she can directly release the task and give the ok on completion. The client can see the task as completed now.

You can always track the project completion, resource reports, team reports, Planned Budget versus actuals, Different planned versions and comparisons. Lots of functionality created meanwhile. Can easily become a product. Cool thing is that it is opensource and free.

More on http://www.viennasolutions.com