I know you're a busy person. And maybe you think that the last thing you have time for is to tell an editor how she can do her job better. But, if you're like me, you're always seeking out incremental process improvement that will pay off in the long-term. In that spirit, I invite you to take our quick and simple 12-question reader survey here:

www.sourcingmag.com/readersurvey

The results will be used by the editorial crew of Sourcingmag.com to create a more useful Web site about outsourcing, offshoring, insourcing and shared services.

There's the payoff for you: The next time you come looking for tools, case studies or advice about some aspect of your work, you'll have helped turn Sourcingmag.com into the set of resources that'll be most helpful to you.

Thanks in advance!

To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often. - Sir Winston Churchill

Iteration is so under-rated these days. People who improve things one small thing at a time are called "uninspired" and "tinkerers." We need people like Steve Jobs who can wake up from dreams and write down furiously their latest and greatest ideas and make them happen! Sure, this happens once in a while and can make gobs of money, but relying upon it as a strategy is dangerous.

We call the Japanese "tinkerers" and wait for the Big Three US automakers to come up with cars that run on practically free hydrogen from the air while the byproducts are water cooled and bottled for our drinking pleasure as we drive. Very exciting, but decades away from happening in real life.

Meanwhile, Japanese automakers are eating their lunch and will continue to do so for decades to come!

The secret is "iteration" -- continuous process improvement and not legendary leaps in innovation. Sure they can happen, great breakthrough ideas, once in a while. But iteration must be one of the most underrated and unexplored ideas. The Toyota Production System with its infinite patience for iteration, studying the results of the iteration and constantly trying to change something in provably better ways, seems to be proving that iteration is better in the long run than inspired instant change.

Particularly for business process outsourcing as well as software development.

In BPO, the selling is not as tough because people realize that before you can improve something, you need to be comfortable and trained on how it is done today. Outsourcing service providers do not have too much say in doing things too differently except in the case of the most enlightened customers.

However software development has institutionalized non-iterative ways of doing things. You CAN come up with a definitive requirements document that CAN be turned into a definitive design document that CAN be turned into perfect code, which in turn makes users ecstatic! Couldnt be further from the truth.

This is where iteration provides the secret. Users may not know precisely in terms of software interfaces or functionality what their requirements are -- especially when they keep changing due to changes in business environment, regulations, laws, and many other externalities. Iteration provides a base for reflecting upon ONE way of doing things and refining it as time goes on. This seems to work better than being forced to specify everything upfront.

Software development methodologies are evolving from rigid, poured-in-concrete ways of doing things to one of gradual evolution and iteration. In many real cases, these new methods seem to have worked better than than before since it involves a feedback cycle that works in design-develop-use-gather-feedback-back-to-design methodology over and over again, converging to the right solution. Some are radical agile methods and some are gradual improvements over the older waterfall methods of software development.

In all these cases, iteration seems to be the secret. Iteration provides a seed that be refined continuously with constant feedback from real users.

Time to embrace iteration as the solution for many ills that are abstract and ail both business process execution as well as software development, particularly in the outsourcing context.

Peter Allen is Partner and Managing Director for Market Development at TPI, responsible for TPIs strategic planning, marketing, business development, industry relations and market intelligence.

Peter leads the TPI Index, a leading indicator of trends and developments occurring in the global sourcing industry, monitored quarterly by global equity analysts, media and industry observers. He is a frequent speaker at industry events focused on sourcing strategies and trends. Additionally, Peter is a regular spokesperson for TPI in the media, having been quoted extensively in The Wall Street Journal, BusinessWeek and the Dallas Morning News, as well as appearing on CNN/fn and the NBC Nightly News as an expert source on technology and sourcing trends.

Previous positions within TPI included the leadership of the companys business process advisory services, to include teams covering Finance and Accounting, Human Resources, Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and Procurement functions. Peter continues to provide counsel to senior executives across a wide spectrum of TPI clients relating to the alignment of service delivery operating models with corporate strategies for enhanced competitiveness. With the experience gained from more than 20 years of industry participation ranging from service delivery to corporate governance, he provides TPIs clients with perspectives on the relationship of sourcing strategies to corporate objectives, notably including the alignment of overhead expenses with changing revenue circumstances.

Peter joined TPI in 2001 after serving as Chairman, President and CEO of a NASDAQ-listed outsourcing service provider, delivering consulting, data center, software testing and offshore applications services.

Previously, Peter spent nine years in senior management positions with Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC). His last assignment at CSC was as Global Service Delivery Executive for CSCs US$2 billion IT outsourcing relationship with JPMorgan, encompassing more than 2,400 staff around the globe. His career began as a member of the ARPANET/Internet engineering team for Bolt Beranek and Newman, Inc., where he was responsible for R&D activities and systems engineering related to Internet security, packet switching, and performance modeling and simulation.

Peter serves on the Board of Directors for Nautilus, Inc., a NYSE-listed marketer, developer and manufacturer of branded health and fitness products with direct, retail and commercial sales channels worldwide. He is Chairman of the companys Corporate Governance/Nominating and Compensation committees and is certified through the Director Certification Program of the UCLA Anderson School of Management.

Peter holds a Bachelor of Science degree in computer science from the University of Maryland.

Contact him at Peter.Allen (at) tpi.net. Visit TPI at www.tpi.net/.

Outsource & Offshore with Ollie & Sam is Copyright 2007 CTQ Media and Bob DAmico - All Rights Reserved. Reproduction without permission is prohibited. Request permission.

The latest news is that the additional 20,000 H1Bs that the U.S congress authorized recently will be snapped up in one or two days. Thats right. ONE OR TWO DAYS! Our local newspaper has an article that immigration attorneys are scrambling to file the papers to take these visas before they run out.

My Prediction is that H1Bs are currently at 65,000 but very soon they will be hiked to Dot com levels at around 185,000. Its not my wishful thinking but there is a perfect storm brewing that will make this happen.

Consider all of the below facts:

Gartners Hype Cycle has Peak of Inflated Expectations as the second stage in any Hype Cycle. My guess is that 2007 will be this stage and 2008 will start the Trough of Disillusionment phase. Offshore software development is hard. I know. I do it everyday. With every company in the U.S and U.K vying for the pool of software engineers and other specialists in India, with wages there rising, turnover turning over development teams every 6 months or so, do you really think that many companies will get their development efforts just even stabilized, much less succeed? Its hard enough to get software done, if you have a stable workforce and sitting two cubicles down from you. Chasing a moving target half way around the world is just wishful thinking. So what does this mean for H1Bs? As many of these efforts run into trouble, many companies will go back to an Onshore-Offshore combination from a purely Offshore one. This means we need more H1Bs for the onshore people that are sent from the offshore teams to sit here with the users and turn around projects that are having trouble. SEI/CMM Level 5 certifications cannot fix imprecise or changing requirements. Or problems in communication. Or trying to force customers to follow CMM Level 5 Rigor.

Many Baby boomers are retiring and college enrollments in Computer Science have been half of what they were since before 9/11. So severe shortages in skilled people. Companies will try to fill this with on shore people with H1Bs. This was a very lucrative business for the current offshore service providers before it turned into purely offshore efforts. They will be eager to go back to this combination.<">