If you have already decided on outsourcing some of your software development and nailed an awesome idea for the project down, there are still a few extra steps that warrant your attention. That is besides picking a reliable and effective outsourcing partner that shall not waste your time and money, probably somewhere with sensible business culture, ready access to a nice IT talent pool, and salaries that won’t make your accountant cry. For all of that, GBKSOFT suggests getting a Dedicated Development Team in Ukraine.
A Mental Checklist for Setting Up a Remote Dev Team
Before your Idea is launched full steam ahead on its way to the market, it’s pertinent to give the diligence its due. Picking people for the team and setting up work processes is the most important part of the whole thing. That’s why we organized all the points you need to consider in this nifty Top Five!
1. Look for Certifications and a Portfolio that matches the project
Now, of course, certs are not a perfect indication of competency or integrity. It’s possible to find certified devs who are absolutely helpless or people with a stellar performance on the job who never bothered to get through a single one – it’s just extremely unlikely. A similar caveat can be made for the past projects on the resume. And some do lie on their resumes and put OCM and AWS certified right next to the Sultan of Deli title, but we’re assuming you are dealing with a good-faith actor here.
Credentials have to be checked from the top down. Whether one of the juniors never worked with React before is irrelevant, but it’s paramount that team leads know exactly what they are doing. The company, as a whole, should have tackled projects of similar type and scope and has institutional knowledge that goes with it.
Having seasoned seniors would go a long way too. It is also possible to supplement the talents of generally experienced leads with seniors that know a particular framework well. If your project is heavy on networking features – look for a more seasoned DevOps. If it’s going to talk to many different databases at once – make sure you have access to the guys who specialize in those. It all flows from the design requirements of your project.
2. Management selection
Selecting a project or a project management team (if the scope of development warrants it) is not an easy task. There are quite a few factors to consider. A perfect manager for the job would be a magical creature indeed. They should:
- Know both the development and business sides of the equations;
- Knows a particular
- Be able to work within your framework – especially important if you employ a team as a part of distributed development;
- Have all the necessary credentials (MBA, APM, BVOP, CSM, PMP…) and experience on the job;
- Be pleasant for you to communicate and work with;
- Know what to escalate and what to solve;
- Be made of sterner stuff and remove stress from the environment rather than add to it;
- And much, much more.
But to apply all of these standards simultaneously would be unfair to any but the best super-managers. Still, these are the points to consider when selecting one, so deploying common sense is necessary here. Fortunately, most outsourcing companies provide a good-enough selection of quality candidates to pick from.
3. R&D and market analysis
Now, if your goal is to bring a truly new product to market complete with unique features, as opposed to a more competition-oriented approach, there’s hardly a better place than Ukraine. Many of GBKSOFT’s clients noted how Ukrainian developers show a higher degree of resourcefulness and creativity, combined with a more goal-oriented approach.
And doing proper research into aspects of the future product booth tech and marker-wise is crucial for its future performance. Three questions have to be answered before the development starts:
- How hard is it to make it do X?
- How much will it cost?
- And would this feature help it to compete to any noticeable degree?
Avoiding these can be disastrous, since a lot of dev hours can go into creating a hard-to-implement feature that no one wanted. And that’s a pretty penny better spent on other features, general polish, better visuals, or even marketing.
Sadly, R&D aspects are often getting second-class treatment in the outsourcing world. They either exist as an afterthought and an extra line in the bill. Also, many outsourcing companies display a gigman mentality when it comes to critiquing some of the client’s ideas, even if it would bring a significant improvement. Luckily, GBKSOFT is not one of them.
4. Communication is the key
Setting up communication and feedback mechanisms is a must under the Dedicated Development Team model. The general practice is to provide customers with weekly reports and scheduled reports upon reaching the milestones, or if otherwise necessary. And while it’s also standard to defer to the choice of the communication software, there are some industry favorites – Zoom for scheduled and weekly calls with Google Meet sometimes being used instead.
The vehicle for chatting and daily meets varies from company to company, with Slack and Skype being the most common ones and Discord or Telegram being up-and-starters in this regard. Some clients also want to participate in daily SCRUMs, which most companies are happy to accommodate.
5. Exercising Control
It is another aspect that can’t be overstated. If your outsourcing partner is not providing you with access to the repository, internal chat, and Jira (or other Project Management software they use instead, like Trello or Asana), or if you suspect that the ones you were provided with are not the real internal ones – you are probably being taken for a ride.
Another thing to consider, especially if you suspect funny business, is to get external QA on the project. Transparency and accountability are crucial in outsourcing business, just as in any other – accept no substitutes.
So What’s the Takeout Here
Setting up a remote Dev team is no different from any other business activity, and from the client, it requires the deployment of two secret weapons – sound judgment and common sense. But after it’s done, the project should pick up steam on its own with some direction on your part, of course.
And if you want a trusted partner on this journey – look no further than GBKSOFT, a company with over 10 years of experience, an amazing talent pool, and a track record to match.
