1. STANFORD UNIVERSITY Case Study Form
Protocol Director: Jerome Francis Peter ArunKumar
Protocol Title: Looking Inside: Client Management
Page 1
PURPOSE OF RESEARCH
I was invited to participate in this research study to understand the client’s viewpoint
about offshore productivity after Chennai (India) flood during the month of December-
2015. I hope to learn the possible factors which placed the offshore workforce at dark
in the eyes of client managers across various platforms in a portfolio. I was selected to
participate in this study because I report to my Senior Delivery manager and assisted
him to tack the productivity of both onsite and offshore teams.
If I decide to terminate my participation in this study, I will notify my director and
submit all the composed details. He has all the rights to contact me to get any data
regarding this study. My name is Shenbaga Sundar and available in mobile contact
number: +1 737 346 1219 and email address is mailtoshenba@gmail.com
VOLUNTARY PARTICIPATION
My participation in this study is entirely voluntary. My decision not to participate will not
have any negative effect on this case. I can decide to participate now, but withdraw my
consent later and stop being in the study without any loss of benefits to which I am
entitled.
DURATION OF STUDY INVOLVEMENT
This research study is expected to take approximately 2 business days with 3 hours of
work per day. Only one participant is involved in this study. It went through multiple
review process and all review comments were in-corporated.
There is a follow-up period involved.
Review process and its implementation took one hour time.
PROCEDURES
The protocol director advised all listed solutions to the identified issues in both onshore
and offshore teams. This project’s onsite location is Lees Summit in Missouri, United
States of America - 64086. Its offshore location is Chennai in Tamilnadu, India.

2. STANFORD UNIVERSITY Case Study Form
Protocol Director: Jerome Francis Peter ArunKumar
Protocol Title: Looking Inside: Client Management
Page 2
IDENTIFIED ISSUES AT OFFSHORE LOCATION
1. Diwali Festival in India (November – 2015) which bagged two business days as
holidays at offshore location to all employees
2. Followed by Diwali holidays, Employees took their own annual paid leaves which
made the entire business week look fruitless to the eyes of Client
3. Chennai floods in the month of December 2015 which made the entire city in
dark for three business days in a week
4. Huge impact of flood, which dented the city’s communication and transportation
system – it made the entire week look un-productive
5. Offshore work location migrated to a new locality which is far away from the city
limits
6. Adolescent planning by offshore delivery management, resulted in no proper
allocation of personal computer to project resources
7. No sufficient VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) phones at offshore location. It
made difficulty to daily onsite & offshore sync-up calls
8. Allocated VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) phones at offshore location were
not connected/placed near personal computer table – it made the WebEx
meetings meaningless
9. No individual login credentials to project’s Production applications and remote
desktops
10.Offshore resources were made to work for other internal teams apart from their
allocated project
11.No offshore status emails were shared to Client Managers. This made offshore
completely hidden in an Island as per Client.
IDENTIFIED ISSUES AT ONSHORE LOCATION
1. Onsite team is not well-balanced. Team is formed with a bunch of folks with their
experience level at extreme ends
2. Team reporting hierarchy is not systematized
3. Client manager is bounced back and forth with daily task enquiries by all team
mates in the early hours of the day. A standard protocol is not followed.

3. STANFORD UNIVERSITY Case Study Form
Protocol Director: Jerome Francis Peter ArunKumar
Protocol Title: Looking Inside: Client Management
Page 3
4. Internal team communication happen using Indian regional language. A common
language (English) is not used as a medium. It has more possibility to reflect as
racial discrimination.
5. Delivery manager also uses regional language to get status updates and for
internal quick discussions within team
6. Work from Home option on all Fridays is expected from one of the senior most
employee of the team
7. Employee passion is not considered during team work allocation. Example – If a
resource wishes to do automation, he is hand-cuffed to do manual tasks.
8. Project automation code base access is not given to all
9. Automation code base walk through is not shared with all in the team. It is
primarily owned by offshore resources.
10.When a defect is found and reported about the project automation framework,
development team takes it personally and feels it as an insult
11.There is no team email distribution list created
IMMEDIATE ACTION TAKEN by Onsite “Delivery Manager”
1. All client emails are acknowledged immediately during onsite business hours (9
AM CST to 6 PM CST) and also during offshore business hours (9 AM IST to 6 PM
IST)
2. Daily offshore and onshore sync up call initiated during offshore morning timing :
10:00 AM IST
3. Daily individual status email is shared by onsite and offshore team to client
managers
4. Entire team is added in all email communications
5. Whenever an allocated project task is completed, a separate email status is
broadcasted to Client managers along with the entire team
6. Team lunch with entire onsite team and Client manager
7. Delivery Manager had one-on-one discussion with Client Manager
8. Delivery Manager had daily discussion with entire onsite team and attended few
sync up with offshore team
9. Delivery Manager personally had one-on-one discussion with both onsite and
offshore team

4. STANFORD UNIVERSITY Case Study Form
Protocol Director: Jerome Francis Peter ArunKumar
Protocol Title: Looking Inside: Client Management
Page 4
10.Delivery Manager had identified the potential of the resources and allocated
individual tasks. Made sure that the entire project tasks were equally shared and
completed by team.
11.Delivery Manager followed the PMP lesson of interaction with all in the team
(Small talk) daily in the early hours of the day to study the mood of the team.
This is one of the best practices followed in Google.
IDENTIFIED SOLUTION FOR ISSUES AT OFFSHORE LOCATION
1. When the personal computer allocation issue is escalated by onsite teammates to
onsite delivery manager. They got a tricky response from onsite delivery
manager which implicitly conveyed the message that “We will have to live with
this issue. No other defined solution”
2. Daily individual status email from offshore team
3. Onsite delivery Manager had sync-up meetings with offshore delivery head to
make sure the basic requirements like personal computer, Voice over Internet
protocol phones and logistics issues were addressed.
IDENTIFIED SOLUTION FOR ISSUES AT ONSITE LOCATION
1. All client emails were acknowledged on time
2. Pending project tasks were shared to offshore team by end of the day
3. Email communications which are left unclosed were pulled and fixed
4. Daily work allocation is shared equally
5. Individual user login account requests were initiated
CONFIDENTIALITY
The results of this research study may be presented at project management or
Information Technology Management meetings or published in Computer Science
project management journals. Client identity and/or personal information will not be
disclosed except as authorized by you or as required by law. However, there is always
some risk that even de-identified information might be re-identified.

5. STANFORD UNIVERSITY Case Study Form
Protocol Director: Jerome Francis Peter ArunKumar
Protocol Title: Looking Inside: Client Management
Page 5
Information may be provided to Federal and other regulatory agencies as required. The
Information and Technology Project Management, for example, may inspect research
records and learn your identity if this study falls within its jurisdiction.
FINANCIAL CONSIDERATIONS
It is entirely voluntary. It is clearly stated that the participant will not be paid for
participating in this research study.
CONTACT INFORMATION
Protocol director: Jerome Francis Peter ArunKumar
Study guide: Pandiarajan Gopal
Participant#1: Shenbaga Sundar