Compared to small in-house development teams, a larger team with domestic and offshore resources may seem daunting to manage. This can be the case when goals, objectives, and resources are misaligned. However, you can boost software development productivity with a scalable team. Outsourcing can alleviate many of the burdens smaller teams can’t handle on their own.
Small teams of only one or two people must bear a workload likely exceeding their capacity. When this is the case, adding additional resources to your projects can go a long way in terms of budget and timeline. Here are some of the top reasons companies decide to outsource, the benefits of combining domestic and offshore resources, and actionable ways to ensure projects stay on track and keep moving forward.
Benefits of a Combined Development Approach
When it comes to large-scale, challenging software development projects, there are many benefits of outsourcing to a team that leverages a global resourcing approach. Here are a few of the top business benefits:
- Minimized costs associated with training in-house teams in all the features, platforms, and systems needed to deliver top results
- Reduced time to deployment and time to market, and increased business advantage over competitors
- Eliminated or reduced staffing costs, like the cost of salary, fringe benefits, and payroll taxes
- Extended resources across a diverse pool of developers with hard-to-find skills, and no lengthy search to recruit required talent
These benefits outline what can be accomplished when a project is executed correctly. However, despite the positives offered by a combined development solution, such attempts can fail if you do not leverage the arrangement properly.
How Outsourcing Streamlines Distributed Software Development
There are many ways to give your projects the best chances of success. Here are some actionable tips to make the most out of your distributed software development.
Understand Your Options
Understanding project scope and size, and establishing key performance indicators (KPIs) to track performance is crucial to success. For some smaller, one-off projects, a localized team may be the best fit. For others, a combination of contractors and in-house employees may be better for having direct oversight and specialized company knowledge. On the other hand, offshore teams typically charge the lowest rate and work well when reporting directly to a local manager but lack detailed company knowledge.
In many cases, leveraging an offshore team in-tangent with your internal resources is the most cost-effective and streamlined way to get the best of both worlds. This would be considered a distributed team with resources at both your location and a remote site. This method saves you money over having a full team in-house and makes scaling easier. It also allows your project to be worked on 24 hours a day when you enlist team members in different time zones.
Use Non-Real-Time and Real-Time Communications
Ensuring communication flows freely between teams and that they are connected through a single source of truth is a sure way to maintain alignment and direction between resources. A cloud-based collaboration tool can store every note, snippet of code, and all other critical elements in a central location that can be easily used by all parties. This tool can be bookmarked and accessed by all team members, regardless of the time and whether they are in-house or outsourced. Some examples of collaboration tools include: Azure DevOps, Microsoft Teams, JIRA, and Bitbucket.
Select Team Members Carefully
Your in-house team needs a designated point of contact who primarily communicates with management, local team members, and the project manager of the offshore location. Choose a leader who:
- Knows how to bring cohesion to a disparate team
- Has a positive attitude about both the project and the concept of a distributed team
- Possesses excellent organizational and communication skills
- Understands the goals of the project and how it aligns with your organization
Your team lead should oversee progress and maintain contact with the other resourcing leads. This helps drive software development productivity and ensures everyone is kept on the same page. With resources across a global workforce, this is essential to overcoming challenges and maintaining overall alignment.
Choose the Right Offshore Vendor
The vendor you partner with makes all the difference. When making your choice, select one that offers local management resources who are skilled in helping to hold a distributed team together. These vendors share the immediacy of your time zone and your native language.
Having domestic project coordinators who are savvy in offshore outsourcing can save an enormous amount of time on back-and-forth and translating idiom into intent. Ask questions about a vendor’s methodology, approach, and client success stories. This gives you an in-depth look at projects they’ve accomplished in the past and how they operate.
Decide Your Level of Involvement
Choose how involved you want to be in day-to-day activities. Micromanaging a project slows progress, creates confusion, and can even derail the project altogether. Taking a total “hands-off” approach can result in unwelcome surprises after weeks or even months have passed.
- Decide how often you need status reports, such as twice a week or daily.
- Set clear criteria for when a team member should seek your immediate attention, like a missed milestone.
- Determine who can approve changes to specifications, finished modules, or cost overruns.
It’s valuable to delegate some authority as close to the source as possible. You want to avoid keeping developers waiting an inordinate length of time for approvals — especially if the issue is relatively minor.
Keep All Team Members in Sync
Whether you call it “marching to the same drum” or “reading from the same page,” the result is that the teams will share a certain rhythm that can enhance the effectiveness of the entire team. Set up programming pairs for brainstorming, code review, and troubleshooting. Establish a weekly meeting on the same day at the same time for a retrospective of what worked and what did not work the previous week. This is a good time to also ask for suggestions to correct failures or keep up the positive momentum. Establish certain days for special tasks, such as reviewing demos or mock-ups on Fridays, testing on a specific platform on Mondays, or hosting a remote luncheon devoted to brainstorming on Tuesdays.
Partner To Increase Agility and Boost Software Development Productivity
Using an agile method of software development can be especially beneficial when working with a distributed team. The agile method breaks the project into smaller pieces that can be developed independently. Instead of having to wait until the entire project is finished, you can review each phase separately. If changes are needed, they can be made faster and more economically. This method also reduces stress levels at every point, especially when defining the entire project at inception.
When selecting an offshore vendor, ask about their experience and certifications in quality assurance frameworks. At a minimum, the vendor should partner with major development platforms while complying with ISTQB® testing and ISO 9001 quality standards. They should also have well-documented and strict IT security standards that protect you and your company.
Build and Execute with Xperity
A globally distributed team is often the most effective option for software development, but these types of teams can be fragile during the early days. The sooner you can achieve harmony and the longer you can keep the team together, the stronger and more resilient they become. A familiar team is more aware of all the work that they have put into the project. This makes them increasingly determined to deliver a quality product on time and within budget.
One way to mitigate this fragility is by partnering with a global software services company like Xperity, which uses proven methodologies to effectively blend highly skilled, offshore development teams with in-house, domestic design and development staffing.
Contact us to learn first hand how Xperity clients have used a “follow-the-sun” approach to benefit from global software development productivity.
