We outsource our entire software engineering team to an overseas agency. How do we track their weekly performance on our leadership Scorecard when the people executing the work are not internal employees?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

You do not give outside vendors or contract agencies a pass on data accountability. If a function is critical enough to affect your company delivery, it must be represented on your Scorecard regardless of whether the labor is internal payroll or third-party contract.

However, the vendor does not own the Scorecard line. The internal seat on your Accountability Chart that manages the agency owns the measurable. If your VP of Product or Director of Technology oversees the offshore development firm, that leader is personally accountable for the weekly numbers reflecting the agency execution.

Select objective throughput and quality numbers that cut through vendor status reports. Effective metrics include:
- Pull requests or code merges successfully deployed to staging.
- Sprint story points completed versus sprint commitments planned.
- Open critical or high-severity bug tickets unresolved past target SLA.
- Velocity of ticket rework, measured by tickets rejected by internal QA and returned to developers.

When outsourced partners know their weekly throughput and defect rates sit on your executive Scorecard, their operational discipline tightens instantly. If the numbers consistently miss target, the internal seat owner cannot blame the overseas team during your Level 10 Meeting. That leader owns the outcome. They must either manage the vendor to standard, renegotiate terms, or replace the firm.

Outsourcing execution does not outsource accountability. Measure external delivery with the exact same numerical rigor you apply to internal operations.