The Pragmatic Craftsman :: Simplicity from complexity : by Stanley Kubasek ::

Yes, you cannot have both. It’s just not possible. That’s the stand of Johanna Rothman. She has some very interesting points.

“If you choose innovation, you can’t outsource,” she says. “You can’t define all the requirements and hand them off to anyone in a highly innovative product — requirements definition and product development have to be a joint exploration — and you can’t do that when the definers and the developers (and testers) don’t sit near each other. You can’t wait for a product to be done — you need to see the product unfold and adjust the product (or the project) to accommodate the things you forgot.”

It’s a different angle on outsourcing, but I think a valid one. You don’t get innovation from outsourcing. You get what you ask for. And that’s not always the case.

Read this short, but informative blog entry.