The other day I answered a question about working with outsource partners. The guy who asked the question complained that he had been trying to find reliable outsourcing partners but the level of responsiveness he got was ways below his expectations. He was asking what the reasonable level of responsiveness is. Here is what I answered him:

When working with outside contractors, it is always vital that you give them a deadline, which is at least a week ahead of your own deadline. So, you will have one week to react. However, don't tell your outsourcing partners about that. In most cases outsourcing partners work on many projects at the same time and it is a bit of a challenge for them to allocate the right amount of time for each project. That is why outsourcing partners generally pay more atttention to projects, which have a fixed end date, or which are urgent.

You should always tell your expectations before you start the project. Always ask your potential outsourcing partners if they are able to take new clients and if they have the time to devote to you.

If the answers to both questions are yes, then you can start negotiating the turnaround time for the project. They will tell you when they will be able to finish it.

However, if you want to be sure that you both speak the same language, ask again. For instance, you can say: "If we start the project on Monday, it'll be done by XYZ date. Am I right?" If they say yes, this means that you have achieved their commitment to finish the project by a particular date.

From there, what I like to do is give them a project that is not time sensitive in a sense that it needs to be done right away, just to test the water, to see how they respond and how the communication is going back and forth.

The next question we need to clarify is about the time and ways to communicate. There are many ways to communicate - phone, email, instant messagers (such as Yahoo, Skype, MSN, etc.) Clarify how they prefer to communicate and also when. It is important to know at what time of the day you can reach them.

Different webmasters work through different times. Some, I know, work in the wee hours of the morning because that is when they are most productive. Others work during normal business hours.

Work hours are really important and you need to clarify this in advance. If you have a vital question to ask them and they work mainly at night, you will be trying in vain to reach them during normal business hours.

The other thing that I would like to do when I am working with an outsource partner is take the guess work out of the project for them. This is my personal preference so not everybody does this but I found this to be more effective from my own projects.

For instance, when I have outsourced the creation of a website, I browse a lot and find many sites I like. Then I show them to the webmaster, so that he can use them as reference while creating my site.

So I will find, say, five to ten different websites and I will say, "Okay, this is what I like about this site. I like the colors in this one. I like the font that they have used here. I like how they boxed this in," and I will find all kinds of different examples.

Now, does that take more of your time? Yes but here is what it does. It eliminates a lot of the back and forth work that is needed when an outsource partner is doing a project for the first time because it gives them a picture of exactly what you are looking for and it makes their job a lot easier. This not only saves you money but it also saves you a lot of time and that has proven to be very effective for me.

As I said, managing expectations and getting commitment (and sticking to deadlines, of course) from your partners are the two most important topics you should discuss first. The prefered ways of communication and the hours when your partners are available are also important topics.

To repeat once again, it is vital that your first project with your outsourcing partner is not an urgent one. The first project is to taste the waters and you should be prepared that not everything might go as planned. You should also expect that the first project might be the last - i.e. if you don't feel your cooperation is great, there is no need to rush to a second project.

Sometimes it is one of those trial and error situations where you go through a bunch of them until you find somebody that you enjoy working with and produces great work. Once you find that relationship, you want to hang on to it with everything you have got.