You have to face certain difficulties if you use offshore software development in your agile development projects. But it is possible to overcome all these difficulties, and here I’d like to share with you some tips that will help you manage with custom software development services. Remote location of your team can make agile methods more complicated, but not impossible! Our successful experience in custom app development proves that correct approach to the offshore software development team is the key to success. Pay attention to the following seven points and your work will become easier and more productive:
- Preparation
Daily communication with the team providing custom software development services via any conferencing system is very important for your project. But it will be too bad if you have to spend a lot of time to find an appropriate place and equipment for a 15-minute talk. Instead of wasting time on search for equipment and rooms, make sure everything is ready in advance. Establishing some standards for used software tools and methods of sharing information will also make communication with your custom app development team easier.
- Small Start
If you start working with a company providing custom software development services on a smaller project, you have time to check the team’s work, assess them and coordinate all processes. The first experience will help you adjust the work mode for your bigger project.
- Hybrid Model
Consider a hybrid model of cooperation with an offshore software development team, as having more on-site personnel might be useful for your project. It will make time zone difference less significant and increase the speed of your custom app development team work, as you will spend less time on communication with remote employees.
- Active Management
The idea of agile method is building a hierarchy-free team. But if you use custom software development services, you have to keep control over your team. The most difficult here is finding the right manager, who can work together with developers but intervene in the process to give some directions if needed.
- Onsite Training
Bringing your offshore software development team might be very useful to share your vision of the project with all developers and show them your business model for which the will create software. Thanks to such training your custom app development team will understand your ideas and implement the right product.
- Right Partner
Check portfolio and case studies of the offshore software development company to understand if they use agile methods in development. Read the description of their custom software development services and try to scope out the percentage of completed agile projects, as percentage of agile development is still rather low in many companies.
- Time Zones
Time zone difference will definitely prevent your communication with the custom app development team. It is important to find a team with at least some overlap for daily scrums. Delay in communication due to time zone difference may lead to loss of control or down time waiting for some answers or approvals. But even this problem may be solved if you train a product owner onsite and then send him to your offshore software development.
