Augmenting development teams has become a common practice for businesses looking to leverage specialized skills, reduce costs, and accelerate project timelines. While outsourcing offers numerous benefits, managing such projects successfully requires a strategic approach.
Without effective planning, projects can fall into one of many traps. Some projects never get off the starting block, languishing in a planning period without any action. Other projects launch into action too quickly, without clear goals and milestones. These projects launch with the intent of jumping right in to get done sooner, but generally end up going much longer, and over budget.
In this blog, we’ll explore software development best practices that can help you navigate the challenges and ensure the success of your initiative.
Tip #1: Define Project Scope and Milestones
Clearly define the project scope and break it down into manageable milestones. This not only provides a roadmap for development but also helps in tracking progress. Setting realistic timelines and milestones allows both parties to stay on the same page and ensures that the project stays on course. Make sure to follow these software development best practices when crafting your project plan:
Establish Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
Develop measurable KPIs that align with your project goals. These could include development speed, code quality, bug resolution time, and overall project progress. Regularly assess and discuss these KPIs with the outsourcing team to maintain a focus on quality and efficiency.
Right size your milestones
Break down the larger project into smaller, manageable components as you review the work to be done. If you are unsure if a milestone is too big or small, relate the anticipated work to a period of time. Celebrating the completion of a milestone multiple times per week? Your milestones are too small. Go beyond a month? They are likely too large. Software development best practices indicate that you should aim to bundle the work as closely as possible with Agile sprints, which should be no more than a month.
Assign owners
Effectively communicating ownership within a software development team is essential for fostering a sense of responsibility, accountability, and collaboration. Firstly, establish clear roles and responsibilities, ensuring that each team member understands their specific areas of ownership.
If your team is small, centrally located, and can effectively connect daily, this step will happen organically. Communicate directly on ownership to avoid missed steps as teams become more remote, and projects are executed by both internally and outsourced teams in collaboration. This is a great checklist to determine if you need a more structured assignment of roles like a RACI, or if you can establish ownership more organically.
Tip #2: Choose the Right Partner
Selecting the right outsourcing IT partner is critical. Evaluate potential vendors based on their expertise, experience, and track record. Look for companies with a proven history of delivering high-quality work within deadlines. Client testimonials and case studies can provide valuable insights into their capabilities and reliability.
Tip #3: Protect Intellectual Property
Ensure that all intellectual property (IP) and sensitive information are adequately protected. Start by clearly outlining confidentiality agreements and legal terms in the outsourcing contract. Implement secure collaboration tools and practices to safeguard your project assets.
While choosing a trustworthy outsourcing partner with a great reputation and references is an important step, it’s important to still make sure you are contractually protected. Have your own legal counsel review any documents to ensure your development investment is sufficiently protected.
PRO-TIP: Avoid outsourcing to countries or regions that have weak or unclear intellectual property laws or enforcement.
Tip #4: Agile Project Management
Adopting an Agile project management methodology approach can enhance flexibility and responsiveness. This iterative process facilitates faster adaptation to changes in requirements and ensures that the final product meets expectations.
Trying to stand-up an Agile process within your organization for the first time? Effective training could be a good use of time to ensure everyone is excited about the new processes for execution, and why they are a win.
Tip #5: Use Continuous testing to power continuous delivery
Manual human testing is insufficient to prevent bugs that would be discovered by product users post release. An automated testing platform can dramatically reduce testing times, keep pace with delivery instead of requiring start and stop processes, tests across different environments and devices and prevent bugs from being discovered post release. Basically, no one should rely on manual human testing anymore, it’s a recipe for disaster.
Considering an automation platform? Make sure it meets key requirements to keep your team moving at top speed:
Comprehensive
Some platforms are limited to only a short list of browsers, devices, or external networks. Ensure you select a platform capable of executing all UI test cases, and required environments.
Speaks your language
Make sure the selected automated testing platform supports all the coding languages used to make up your products, such as Java, c#, Python, Ruby, Perl, PHP and .Net.
Fast Feedback
Your automated testing platform should seamlessly integrate as another member of the team, giving developers fast feedback on areas needing improvement in quality. Longer delays are one of the major reasons to avoid relying solely on testing manually. Therefore, make sure that you don’t accept a platform that fails to deliver automation.
Secure
Your automated testing platform needs to maintain the same security standards of any other platform facilitating your products. Make sure the platform is usually a virtual machine (VM) and all data is stored in a certified data center. Also make sure that the connections used are not only secure, but private.
Build a successful partnership on communication from beginning to end.
After the project concludes, conduct a thorough retrospective to identify areas for improvement. Gather feedback from both your team and the outsourcing partner to understand what worked well and what could be enhanced in future collaborations. Utilize this insight to refine your outsourcing strategy for future projects. It’s important to remember that a well-managed software development partnership can be a valuable asset for achieving business objectives and staying ahead in a competitive market.
Apply software best practices to get your project off on the right foot, or back on track.
Successfully managing outsourced development projects requires a combination of clear communication, strategic planning, and collaboration. By following these software development best practices, businesses can navigate the complexities of working with external resources, mitigate risks, and ensure the delivery of high-quality products within stipulated time and budget constraints.
Need help to get your project off the ground or back on track? VSE’s team of development experts are ready to jump in and help you reach your organization’s goals. Reach out and let’s strategize together.