To place in context, I made a document that went to tender where I stated the objectives and timeframe of the product, but because of an NDA I couldn't be explicit with a lot of it in case the potential tenderers saw a benefit of making it on their own.
That being said the product tender was awarded, I gave the tenderer with the details and they assured me they could do it. They are offshore.
I provide to the outsourcer the testing, validation and certification documents of each component before they started.
During the build, when I'd planned every component delivery of the turnkey product and I wanted to know what where they doing, they told me that they were doing great and that I should wait until the end of the week to see the demo and the results.
When I saw the first component and compared it to the expected, I knew I had to change the way they were working because we had lost possibly half of the week making the developers work on something different from what I expected on that delivery.
I wanted to be closer to the construction and offered my daily involvement, but they told me "that would be micromanagement".
I only wanted short interruptions and reports, however it's not my company, it's the outsourcer's, and I have no authority there to determine how should they work.
The other thing that is at stake here is that I don't want the project to fail because of poor management of the outsource. Nor do I want to take out the document where it states the terms and conditions of the service, thus eroding the relationship when 5 or 6 components are still to be completed.
The "we'll do it later" approach has not worked for me in the past, because "later" they will need extra budget to complete what was originally requested.
So, what how can I work effectively with this kind of outsource relationship?