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I have been using a provider on elance for my start up project. the provider has completed 60 % of accepted deliverables in june. the project was paused for 5 months by me as i was parallely working on the patent filing and could not focus on guiding the software development.I had informed them and was in contact with them now and then, updating on the resume schedule. In december i finished my patent work and requested the software developer to resume the work implmenting the new feedback i have given them. I have given one month prior indication about the resuming of work. they were happy to resume the work. from december 2010 till now feb 2011, there is no progress of what so ever from them on the project. every week i have been talking, requesting and gently remindinig them on the work progress, but there is no visible progress of any sort. I am only getting assurances that some one is working on the project, but cant see any progress. i have given them a detailed item wise description on what needs to be done , so there is no ambiguity in what work has to be done. I had also offered to pay any money that they want from me, but they are keeping the money part away in the discussions.

I am losing my patience , and the delay is costing me quite a bit. What options i have now and how do i tackle the delays caused by the service provider?....any throughts would be highly appreciated.

Is it wise to hunt for a new service provider? or just wait till these guys respond????

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This is part of the risk with using a service like elance and outsourcing in general. I'd say that a large contributing factor was the hold you put on the project. You can't expect a 6 month hiatus and then all of a sudden ramp up at your convenience. That is unreasonable in my opinion. – TimJ♦ Feb 8 '11 at 14:31

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Not knowing when you'd come back, they put their resources on other projects. They are floating you as much as they can, because they are in the middle of ongoing projects. They are unlikely to want to change gears because, well, you left once, you may do so again. They are playing it safe and prioritizing their current customers.

However, one glaring problem on the provider side is complete lack of visibility into your workload. One would hope that your functionality is in their backlogs, and being checked out, further refined, and marked completed somehow as work progresses. Any company doing outsourcing work should make such project management data and progress visible to the stakeholders.

I'd say cut your losses and find a new, better shop. But, as Tim says in the comments, please be aware you had a big part in the outcome and learn from it.

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You need to have a frank discussion with them. I would share this very Q&A link with them so they know where you are coming from. Tell them that you accept full responsibility for the delay and any problems or concerns it may have caused them. Tell them going forward that you will commit to being responsive. In return, you need their commitment. Then set up milestones that you both can agree to. These milestones must be very short term, never more than seven days. That means delivery on the milestone date, not "yeah, we did that, just trust us". If they won't sign up for this new arrangement or do not live up to it, move on.

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Errk, this is a bit complex. First, you can't treat software development as a replaceable resource that can be turned on and off like a spigot - your '5 month pause' (and I assume they were completely paid up until that point) would have had a distinct impact on their scheduling (they are hardly hungry for clients right now). Second, their failure to provide updates once accepting the resumption of the project is a lack of professionalism.

To play the devils advocate you are both at fault - if you engage a service provider you should be aware that you are not the only client of their services. The service provider themselves should be operating as transparently as possible (providing you with full access to source code and changes, design information and other documentation - this is how I deal with contracts, the results have been good and bad for me but at least I can sleep at night).

For your situation the best advice (IMHO) would be to cancel your contract with the current provider and take all the source and documentation you have to someone else. For future deals you should probably ensure you can break your requirements into manageable chunks that you don't have to 'pause' for whatever reason.

Regards, ShaneG

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