I have scads of experience both building and managing software projects. I've also worked with a lot of people; full-time employees as well as contractors. My first experience with outsourcing a project went to India where I could leverage the exchange rates to purchase more hours for my dollars. I put together a fairly extensive project plan from which everyone could work.
After having review the source code and tested the application, I know the developer is competent. However, there are several things I will do differently next time.
1. My application needed a Web service. I was providing this service, but I wanted to let the developer have some leeway here -- the developer would know best as to what would be needed, right? This was bad. I should have defined the Web service before hand -- method names, parameter names, design by contract, etc.
2. Design. I am no designer. The developer did the design work. The graphic design didn't turn out bad but it wasn't what I wanted. The problem is, I didn't come up with a design concept until the work was well underway. I couldn't criticize a design that was otherwise okay because I was too unimaginative to come up with something on my own in the first place.
3. Layout, labels, and process flow were all left to the developer. Again, this didn't turn out that bad, but it could have been much better in terms of UI. I should have had my own screenshots in advance with flow-charts indicating how the user experience should be implemented.
There were of course times when the language barrier was a problem, but it was never a significant problem, especially via email. Planning -- even more than I had done -- would have saved a lot of time and produced a better product.
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