In the times of the coronavirus pandemic, a lot of businesses are looking for solutions that will reduce the cost and offer increased flexibility, scalability, and agility. Offshore software development can be the answer when companies are looking for quality and timely solutions for a good price.
But finding and working with a remote software development team can turn out to be a challenging task especially when you are new to the work from home mode. Read on to find out the best advice on how to choose and manage a software development team in the times of COVID-19.
How to choose an outsourced development team?
Two of the main outsourcing destinations in recent years have been India and Eastern Europe. But with the coronavirus pandemic, Eastern Europe has been a more preferable location since it offers great quality and a cost-effective solution. The leading countries in Eastern Europe software development are Ukraine, Romania, and Poland and there are more than 100 000 IT specialists that can offer help and support for businesses in all industries.
When looking for an outsourcing vendor, there are several things you need to focus on – flexibility, security, and effective management are critical in these challenging times. Here are the main things that you should look for in a remote partner.
Good security policy
To eliminate the risks of cybersecurity threats look for an outsourcing company with an established security policy. Your remote team should comply with security standards such as PCI, ISO, HIPAA to ensure the security and safety of your data.
Streamlined agile processes
An agile approach offers more flexibility. Choose a company with streamlined agile processes to provide easier management, more effective work processes, and cost reduction.
Reliable project management skills
Good project management is key to the successful outcome of any project. Running effective meetings, setting clear goals, and leveraging the strengths of the team members are important for the productivity of the software development team.
Great communication skills, transparency, and enthusiasm
Choose an outsourcing company that invests the time and effort to understand your business needs, communicate effectively, and try and best to eliminate all misunderstandings.
How to manage an outsourced development team?
Here are some of the aspects you should pay special attention to in the time of remote working.
Communication
Communication is important but both the lack and the overload of it can mess up the working process. You need an adequate number of emails, calls, and video meetings with your remote software development team.
You should be available for them and responsive but not 24/7 – establish your response time and monitor the channels within the set hours. To ensure that you communicate effectively, choose the right communication and collaboration tools.
Productivity
You want to keep the productivity high but not to micromanage your remote team. To do so, follow some of these best practices:
- Clarify as much as possible what needs to be done, what are the expected results, tasks, and priorities, etc.
- Set up metrics to evaluate the outcome of your remote development team
- Track implemented tasks
- Perform regular reviews and provide feedback
- Ensure that your expectations are clear and realistic
- Use time tracking applications
- Socialize with the members of your team
- Promote and organize online meetups, workshops, and such to keep the team motivated and engaged.
Project management
An agile approach can be most effective when working with an outsourced software development team because it changes the way you tackle common work aspects.
- Adjust the scope of tasks instead of changing the deadline – this will help you to monitor the working process more effectively because you will have milestones to stick to
- Keep fewer but extended documents – documentation has to be precise because lack of communication may hamper the information access
- Have regular refinement sessions to ensure product management and engineering management are on the same page
- Apply the principles of Scrum/Kanban frameworks to avoid miscommunication
- Conduct feedback sessions to make sure that everyone on the remote team understands the areas of improvement.