Aslan Kusainov, the leading project manager of tekmates*, talks about what it is and how to build it.

*tekmates is a technology business partner that helps companies realize their business missions through effective digital solutions.

My path to IT began back in 2016, when I got into a small domestic company, which at that time had only recently entered the market. For the first couple of years, I was mainly engaged in the work of an analyst, but far from IT, more in the media sphere, since by education I was an inveterate humanitarian: collecting information, monitoring the information space, research on various topics, etc. Having accumulated sufficient expertise in this area, I gradually began to be involved in the development and launch of new information and analytical products, so in 2018 I took the position of project manager. Since then, my team and I have launched several successful products in the field of govtech, telecom and information security. Looking back, I understand that I was always motivated by the desire to participate in new challenges, when I left my comfort zone, learned something new, and only in this way, through practice, I felt my growth. So in 2023, I joined the digital company tekmates and continued my career as a project manager. Having worked here for more than a year, I decided to share the main differences between working in a product and outsourcing.

In both types of companies, the project can identify the following areas of responsibility: budget and presale management, working with the client and team, product management and development.

While working for a product company, I was involved in presales, but in general this is not a common practice for a project and is typical only for products focused on the B2B and B2G segment. My area of responsibility was: conducting product presentations, analyzing needs, preparing the product for a demo and/or pilot, participating in the preparation of a commercial offer and accompanying potential customers to the sales stage 

The project manager is attracted to such presales because he is deeply immersed in the product context, knows the market, competitors, and understands customer segments. This is because the project manager has been working on the same project for a long time, and thanks to this, he is building up his competencies in the right business segment. 

In my case, participation in the presale was closely related to the work of the product manager: to look for hypotheses for growth, identify shortcomings in the current functionality of the product, prioritize the backlog. This was necessary to develop the product and increase sales. 

At the moment, participation in the presale, being an outsourcing project, is a mandatory part of the work. In the absence of a finished product, outsourcing presale boils down to offering product development from scratch or the introduction of new services into an existing product. The client does not just buy "hands" to solve problems, but gets access to the experience and knowledge of specialists who specialize in the right areas and may have already done something similar. In addition, if the outsourcing company already has successful cases in the client's domain, the chances of sales increase.

The presale stage begins for me with an incoming request from an engagement manager or project management officer to form a commercial offer for a specific client. After that, I assemble a presale team from among the internal employees of the company, as standard it is a business analyst, leads in some areas of development and other specialists on request, since sometimes the project can attract more narrowly focused specialists: ETL developers, BI analysts or employees with a specific background, for example, experience in developing a credit pipeline for individuals if required by the client's request.

When the team is assembled, the project organizes all the processes: from collecting analytics, determining the scope of tasks, determining the composition of the future team, deadlines for implementation and to creating a commercial offer. Another important step is to identify the risks that may affect the project.

The project may not participate in the final stages of the presale. To do this, there is an engagement manager or sales - who pick up the ready—made calculations of the project manager and go with them to the client. 

In cases where the commercial offer satisfies the client's request and a contract is concluded, the project proceeds to the project initiation stage. I will not dwell on the details of the work at this stage, we will proceed immediately to the formation of the project team.

From my experience, a project is usually associated with a single team, but it happens that it manages several related small teams. In these cases, the manager delegates operational tasks more to other members of the development team, the scrum master or the team leader. 

Changes in product teams usually occur less frequently than in outsourcing. It is important for companies and the project to keep the same staff of specialists working on the product for as long as possible, so as not to lose expertise and experience, but rather to develop the team: increase the speed of development, cohesion, morale, and instill company values. To do this, the project needs to constantly upgrade the skills of regular management.

One of the remarkable facts for me is that the product team has more freedom in decision-making, because, first of all, the team and the project are fully responsible for the product itself. In outsourcing, this role is more related to the client (customer), but in experienced companies they try to develop the client and build such communication when the outsourcing team can influence the client's decisions on product development.  

I was surprised when I joined outsourcing, six months later I was already working on the second project. For me, this has a good effect on the development of the skill of watching — in business, technology, processes. 

Projects change not only for the project, but also for the development team. The reasons may be as follows: 

• The employee himself wants to switch to another project.
• The specialist has the experience and competencies that are needed on another project. 
• Completion of the current project.

Working in such conditions, for me, as a project, one of the main responsibilities was to constantly support the staffing of the team, fully load the necessary amount of work, avoid downtime of resources and loss of productivity. It may seem that such a high dynamics of changes in the team takes a lot of effort and time from the project manager, but this is not the case in mature outsourcing companies. Thanks to the structured hiring and onboarding processes in the company and the project, it is easier for the project to manage changes in the team and create opportunities for its smooth operation.

In addition to managing the team, scoping work, and so on, one of the important areas of the project is the management of the project budget. This is typical for both outsourcing and product companies, but with distinctive properties, which will be discussed below.

In such companies, profits directly depend on product sales. If the product sells well, employees can receive higher salaries and bonuses. 

While working for a grocery company, I also did not lose sight of additional opportunities to influence product revenue. For example, to provide additional services or functionality, to test hypotheses for changing the business model, to customize the product for the client's processes. This was due to the fact that I was attracted to the possibility of influencing the product development strategy. However, this is also not typical for the project's role in product companies, but is often used in our environment.

If we talk about costs, then everything depends on the specifics of the product itself. For example, I had to take into account not only the salary fund of the project, but also control various types of purchases, operating costs, etc. I remember working on a hardware project, where it was necessary to take into account also the purchase of production components, which directly depended on the exchange rate, price increases of suppliers, logistics and other factors. 

In an outsourcing company, the budget begins to be formed from the presale stage, since we sell the working hours of employees necessary for the implementation of a specific amount of work, respectively, we understand the cost of a certain number of employees and for a certain period of time. But sometimes it can be a fixed amount for product development. 

In such a situation, the project does not have many tools to influence the income of the project, but this is possible due to additional work. For example, conducting research, creating additional services within the product, or extending the current project through product development.

Cost management in an outsourcing company is most often reduced to the control of time and completed tasks by employees. In general, the financial part of an outsourced project usually does not significantly affect the work of the project. It is taken over by the heads of the directions, directors or financiers.

Development is usually based on similar processes and concepts both in outsourcing and in a product company. But still there are differences in the approach to work.

The process of producing a digital product

Since product teams are less dependent on other products or partners, the project has more freedom. He and his team can influence and change the production process. In addition, in a product company, deadlines are not as strictly limited as in outsourcing, since the latter are committed to a certain deadline in front of the client, and the client, in turn, can commit to the board of directors or any other controlling authority for a certain period of time. All this is also enshrined in contractual obligations.

One of the features of outsourcing is its direct dependence on the client's infrastructure and processes. This means that the team needs to have access to the customer's resources, integrate with the customer's production process and depend on other factors — for example, release windows, when the product can only be updated on certain days, so the project in outsourcing needs to be pumped in managing deadlines, dependencies, and stakeholder expectations. For this reason, I often have to be actively involved in the client's processes in order to determine the risks of the project, work with the client's limitations and take into account all dependencies. There is usually no such thing in grocery companies — there are no external dependencies and the process is simpler and more familiar.

Here is a universal advice from myself that a product team or an outsourcing team is good, it's just different for everyone. 

Despite the serious differences in the specifics of the project's work in product and outsourcing teams, it is not enough to pay attention to the type of company when applying for employment. It is important to look at how a particular company works. All companies have different corporate culture, attitude towards employees, and opportunities for development. Even in outsourcing teams, there is a great opportunity to upgrade product skills.

You can work for a long time in a product company within the framework of a single project and upgrade your skills multiple times. Also, the opposite is true: working in outsourcing, you can change projects, develop professional awareness and hone skills on different products. Ultimately, it all comes down to the aspirations and goals of the project itself, especially at an early stage of your career path, and of course the team you choose.