“You will get exactly what you asked for, so you better
make sure you are asking for exactly the right thing.”

agement of the project, and the vendor’s capabilities. The identified risk factors for each of these areas are discussed next. Our discussion focuses on insights by the panelists that highlight the factors’ significance to offshoring.

Client-vendor communications. The panel was of the opinion that most offshore projects are susceptible to miscommunications that can complicate the transmission of the original set of requirements and subsequent information exchanges and change requests. These concerns were expressed in three related risk factors.

Miscommunication of the original set of requirements (factor #2) was identified as a major risk because, as a panelist pointed out:

“Language, environmental, and other factors play a huge part in how people read and understand things. No matter how specific the requirements, there is often a window for assumptions to be made. This is especially dangerous when you are talking about long-distance collaborations.”

Nonetheless, according to the panel, getting the requirements straight is essential because “with less opportunity for interaction with development resources offshore, a much higher premium is put on the quality of the requirements.” Another expert identified a related danger associated with the highly structured processes that are instituted by many vendors: “you will get exactly what you asked for, so you better make sure you are asking for exactly the right thing.”

Language barriers in project communications (#3) also received extensive attention by the experts. This is not surprising given the language and cultural differences that exist in multinational teams and the difficulties of remote collaboration [ 6]. As an expert pointed out, such challenges exist even when all project members speak the same language: “even when both parties speak English, there is a major chance for misunderstanding because much of our language is based on cultural assumptions.” Due to these differences, even simple information exchanges during the

project execution can become lengthy and complex as “frequent give and take” is needed before the parties understand each other.

The final communications-related risk was poor change controls (#7). Ineffective controls can lead to scope creep, a recognized threat that affects all types of projects. However, the experts suggested that this risk takes on a more prominent role in offshoring because of the communications issues identified above. Moreover, physical distance (and the lack of informal interactions between developers and users) is likely to affect the handling of change requests as “ offshore destinations, being remote and distant, do not have the same sense of urgency as the client organization about the need for changes.”

Client’s internal management issues. Three traditional client-related risk factors (lack of top management commitment, inadequate user involvement, and difficulty in managing end-user expectations) were deemed important by the experts. In addition, they identified two other risks rooted in the newness of the offshoring phenomenon: the lack of relevant project-management know-how, and the inability to fully consider all relevant costs.

Consistent with prior research [ 9], lack of top management commitment was ranked as the #1 risk. Several panelists noted that for all types of IT projects, offshore-outsourced or not, senior management support is essential. As a panelist wrote, “this issue is not unique to offshore projects, but is rather a generic project issue faced by all projects regardless of the location of the different management and staff.”

Inadequate user involvement (#4) was also identified as a critical threat. Several panelists noted that many offshore projects are frequently directed by IS groups with inadequate user participation. Given the significance of such involvement and its positive impact on system acceptance and usage [ 9], it is imperative to meaningfully engage users in the project. As a panelist pointed out, involvement is also important because of its political value.

“Most offshore projects are stewarded by IT groups on behalf of the users. If you think your IS department is far removed from the development work, you