Cracks in the facade

GARTNER rates SA as one of its top 30 software development outsourcing destinations, with recent research putting it on par with Israel in the EMEA region and next to Australia and India globally.

But this doesn't impress Indigo Cube MD Ziaan Hattingh and principal consultant Jaco Viljoen. "We are still as bad at software development as we were 20, 30 years ago," Viljoen says. "There are two sets of problems that impede us. One set is related to technology and the other to the way we do software development," Viljoen adds.

"There is an imbedded mindset about how we do software development and even though modern software development has solutions for this people still do things the old fashioned way, the way they've always done it; they are just using more dangerous tools. As a result the mess-ups are bigger." Adds Hattingh: We have more efficient tools to do it badly with."

Dariel Solutions MD Malcolm Rabson adds: "Local quality and usage of the latest tools is comparative to anywhere in the world. The problem that SA faces is the shortage of properly trained and skilled developers."

Hattingh and Viljoen say global research shows that only about 30% of software development projects are successful. The others are challenged or outright failures - and that is the case in SA too.

The problem starts with the way universities teach software development," says Viljoen. "The focus is on the individual mastery of skills with little mentoring and guidance. The university system never teaches you the important stuff."

"Software development is a team sport," explains Hattingh. "This is not something we've caught up with yet. We sit with a lot of individualists who all want to do their own thing..." Another problem, he adds, is the square pegs for round holes syndrome. "We see countless examples where people are miserable in their jobs because they are not suited to the task. This is particularly the case with business analysts but is just as applicable to project managers.

"We don't know how to put teams together and the result is project managers who are project administrators and business analysts who analyse but cannot add value," Hattingh laments. "The people aspect of software development has been very badly managed."

It is said the first step in getting out of a hole is to stop digging down. Hattingh and Viljoen say this means proper skills development. "We cannot rely on the schooling system or the universities. We have to do it ourselves," Hattingh says.

"Off-shoring is constrained because there is a global skills shortage. Everyone is looking at India and saying 'there's our solution', but it can't be forever, of course," says Viljoen. "At some point India will also run out of capacity. Importing skills is also not the solution. You can't have a country with a 40% unemployment rate importing skills all the time."

"There are no quick fixes, we will have to knuckle down as an industry and solve it. It will take time to sort out," Viljoen adds. "But at some point people must recognise we must do something about it or the problem will be even worse next year and worse still the next. Last time we took part in the ITWeb salary survey we saw salaries had gone up 25%. How long can we still afford salary inflation like that?"

Dariel Solutions MD Malcolm Rabson says risk reduction is key in selecting a development company. Some questions to ask before signing the dotted line include:

* Do they have a mature software development process and can they demonstrate it?

* What other enterprise projects have they undertaken?

* Do you trust them and believe that they are ethical?

"Examine their track record and the number of years that they have been around. Remember you can't buy maturity, it's a developing process," he cautions.