Can you solve a problem in shifts?

The Alpha-Geek is on vacation this week, so it was left to three different peeps to bring their skill-sets to the problem-solving potluck today. My skill-set, mind you, was the least of them, but it was "my" project so, in actuality, I was just the cat-herder. (If you have cats, you know that's not necessarily a pejorative.) The point is, that the problem wasn't solved until all three folks were in the same cubicle at the same time. Even more to the point: All parties in question were crystal-clear on what the final product is supposed to look like--and gathered around the computer that showed that the final product didn't much resemble it.

I'm not knocking outsourcing; it certainly has its place. But the "globalized workforce" notion of round-the-clock teams handing work off between shifts like it's a baton in a relay is--in my less-than-humble opinion--twenty-four-caret hogwash. Bottom line: You're just not going to get a hive-mind level of collaboration in that scenario. If you want an illustration, try this exercise:

1. Think of some little feature you wish that your computer, smart phone or favorite gadget could have but doesn't.
2. Write down what it should do. In excruciating detail so that even the proverbial dullest knife in the drawer can't possibly misunderstand you.
   
3. Add mockups of screenshots.
   
4. Flow-chart of every possible combination of clicking, dragging, minimizing, maximizing, scrolling, etc. to make sure that you don't have unintended consequences like data loss.
   
5. Have that documentation translated into at least two different languages.
6. Make sure that your contractors understand exactly what it is you're shooting for in all that documentation.
7. Give the contractors money, sit back and wait for the final product.

If you vet your contractor well, you'll get back exactly what you asked for at the time you handed off the project. (If you phone in mid-project additions/changes, no pity for you!)

Alternatively, you could specify less detail up front, at the cost of making time for any number of review meetings--particularly early in the project--and a certain amount of "slop" in the schedule and budget as things are re-worked and reviewed yet again. Your call.

In all honesty, I won't deny that it just might work for a discrete, highly targeted set of features. Good on you if it does. Seriously. But seeing how much of a communication gap there can be between bright people who have worked together for years, natively speaking the same language...call me skeptical for the larger projects. Even accounting for a certain protectionist bias on my part. Maybe I'm not giving collaboration tools sufficient credit, but I just can't see any substitute for having all the right peeps in the same place at the same time when it counts.