Technology industry is a global industry. Cisco routers are sold all over the world, serviced all over the world
and developed by engineering teams spread across the globe. Several organizations in the United States are developing
products with development teams spread across timezones. Development teams in India, China, Russia and other low cost
location allow the project manager to put more resources on the task. In several cases, the presence of an overseas components can turn a negative NPV project into positive NPV project. In this paper I would like to enumerate learning from several telecommunications product development experiences. In most cases there were two main teams working on the project. One based in a low cost location and the other based in North America. Additionally, some members of the team worked from home offices and would commute to the main office only when asked to do so by the project manager.
The overseas team was always part of a dynamic overseas company which specialized in providing development resources for advanced telecommunication ventures. This distinction is important since we are dealing with established companies with mature processes and verifiable track record. This paper lists key lessons that can help better managing
distributed projects.