Disclaimer: I am not a professional project manager!
But I have successfully outsourced [a relatively complicated project http://nicholastodd.com/buddygopher/index.php?BackEnd] using on-line tools such as [RentACoder http://www.rentacoder.com/], [eLance http://www.elance.com/] and [Guru http://www.guru.com/].

This session will highlight:

* The Specifications Document
* Posting Your Project- Making it attractive
* Selecting a Coder- Who to trust?
* Payment and Feedback

Particularly for creative types, outsourcing allows you to focus on your strengths- like usability and feature development- while allowing others to implement back-end strategy, like a tricky memcached installation.

I hope to include actual specification documents that I have used for reference. Maybe we can draft a live spec for a relevant project during the session.

On RentACoder, eLance and Guru my username is nickgray

I would appreciate any input or advice from prospective attendees - let's work together!

[Nick Gray http://nickgray.net/]

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Starting a draft with Scott Kidder of presentation outline.

== Real-world Examples

* Brushing your teeth
* Doing your laundry
* Making a phone call to get restaurant closing time
* Driving a car to soccer practice
* Filling up a car's gas tank
* Pouring a glass of milk
* Peeling an orange
* Sweeping the kitchen floor
* Shutting down Windows with an open, unsaved Word document that needs to be saved
* Shuffling a deck of playing cards
* Pick out matching dress pants and shirt
* Raising or lowering the thermostat to X temperature
* Solve a simple addition problem: 2+2

== What is an RFP?
A Request for Proposal is a formal document that solicits a third party to provide a specified service at an undetermined price. The voice of the document usually assumes that the third party has agreed to perform the service,

== Components of a formal Request For Proposal

* Objective/Summary
* Timeline
* Storyboard or Screenshots
* Deliverables - The bare minimum
* Evaluation criteria - For any bonuses or feedback ratings
* Project management
* Payment terms

== Simpler Components

* Requirements   (What do we want to do?)
* Specifications  (How are we going to do this?)

== !RentACoder

!RentACoder is my favorite on-line outsourcing website. The site boasts over 127,000 registered programmers; I have personally worked with 10 of them. There is no obligation for software buyers - Posting a bid request is free.

* Post your bid request
* Receive bids from coders (and communicate further)
* Accept a bid and put payment in escrow
* Work is done by coder
* Receive and approve work
* Rate coder

== Elance, Guru.com

I used Elance for a few projects - namely having an Indian team bulk-register over 3,000 AIM screen names for my !BuddyGopher project. The quality of programming skills was much lower here, but for graphic design - espeically logo work - I would suggest Elance.

Guru.com seemed even worse than Elance. Lack of serious programming talent.

== Assorted Misc Notes
* [The Wikipedia entry on RFP http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RFP] is sorely lacking. Maybe we could update it during/after the session.

* My goal is to give people an idea of how to QUICKLY write an RFP or spec, and now how to write [a huge, boring 39 page RFP http://www.libraryhq.com/rfp.doc].

* "If I had six hours to cut down a tree, I'd spend four hours sharpening the axe."  -- Abraham Lincoln

* "If you don't know what you need to do, it's too early to figure out how to do it." -- Scott Berkun