I’ve been a fan of Sandeep Sood’s wickedly funny comic “Doubtsourcing” for some years now. (He seems to be taking a breather right now, writing about big B’s campaign, but that’s another story…)

Yesterday his newsletter pointed me to an excellent short – and humorous – article in Forbes about outsourcing to India. If you work with people in other parts of the world, especially India, and you haven’t seen it yet, I urge you to check it out. Working from an anecdote about an all-too-common miscommunication with his virtual assistant, he draws some broad lessons on what it takes to make outsourcing to another country work.

Perhaps most significantly, Sandeep Sood refers several times to “global collaboration,” and not once to “offshoring.” I think it’s that mindset, the recognition that what you’re really doing is working with people in another country and culture, not sending work out, that underlies almost all successful global projects. Add to that basic understanding some detailed planning, a lot of structure, good virtual communication tools, and a large dollop of patience, humor and respect, and you can get some great results…and maybe even have fun in the process.

In addition to his commentary, there is a slide show on ten tips for outsourcing. These do not include the usual advice on contract negotiations and performance metrics! Last I checked, the link to one of them is not functioning, but you can get to the rest of the slides by manually tweaking the URL. They’re worth it.