Given all the problems up to that point, we sensed the project was at risk, so our internal software development manager, QA manager and I flew to India to meet with the offshore people. Graciously, the vendor also scheduled us to meet with the top brass. The visit was highly informational and warm feelings prevailed, but by this time the application was in the testing phase and nearly "complete."
Not long after our trip, the offshore team delivered the tested, "finished" application. According to the on-site liaison, all we now needed to do was perform a ceremonial user-acceptance review, sign off on the project's successful delivery and celebrate.
Not so fast. We instead decided to perform a little QA of our own. In less than a day, one Life Time tester and one developer found more than 35 defects, many of them showstoppers. Screens randomly went blank, "saved" data was lost, functionality was missing, the interface wasn't consistent and data validation didn't work. The offshore team categorized the hundreds of newly found defects as "in scope" (these they fixed) or "out of scope" (these were deemed Life Time's problem).
Even after the vendor fixed the "in scope" defects, the application was unusable. And fixing it meant it would be late and even more over-budget. At this point, we decided the best course was to take delivery of the application and overhaul the code ourselves. We couldn't bear trying to explain to the offshore vendor all the code fixes that were needed and then haggle over who would pay for them.
Post Mortem
Subsea cable alternatives can provide a level of comfort for those concerned about disruptions. Realistically, they will continue to play a small, but critical role in the short term.
Maintaining existing network infrastructures often incurs huge technical debt before newer technologies are adopted over time.
Amid ongoing regional uncertainties, telecom infrastructure in the Middle East has expand to include terrestrial low-latency network infrastructure, which offers resilience and agility in navigating political complexities without relying solely on undersea networks.
