As it is well known IT industry tends to grow very fast nowadays and the competition between both the innovators of IT ideas and vendors will never reach its top – it grows constantly.
One of the most interesting questions in software development outsourcing business is about the strategy of choosing the best partner whose skills and experience are appropriate for the project and who would be able to turn venturous idea into successful technical solution.
This question is of high priority for outsourcing services providers and allows enhancing the value of services and loyalty of existing and new customers.
To my mind, the first and the foremost item the IT customers should consider while looking for software development providers is the real level of expertise the team has. This item stands above all the other important facts, like the size of the company, the references, communication and etc. The references could address another team working at previously completed projects and no longer employed by outsourcing software development company. The size of the company can not reflect real level of professionalism. Net profits will not represent the actual grows of business, as the major part of expenses can be related to investment into company grows and the team trainings.
Technical knowledge, skills, experience, understanding of business requirements and ability to generate solutions are the foundation of successful project development and launch to the market of robust solution.
Before choosing the partner, it’s very important to get acquainted with the team of developers and organize serious technical interview with each member of the team assigned to your project. The team members must possess high level of proficiency and provide clear answer to all your technical questions. Except the technical convenience the developers must have excellent communication skills and provide regular and effective communication with you and the other team members over the project building. Regular team meetings, discussion of the progress, issues and ongoing tasks planning will allow to stay on the same page and timely alarm in case of any discrepancies.
On negotiation stage you should represent the project details to the Lead Developer of software outsourcing company, so he can analyze carefully all the requirements, assess the scope of work and give his suggestions of project building, advise on used tools, technologies, CMS and Frameworks, ask necessary questions to clarify the details and prepare the plan of project implementation with the breakdown of all the tasks and time necessary to accomplish each task, the start and final delivery date. The questions of Lead Developer and the initial project plan will give you good idea on the provider’s proficiency and correspondence to your needs.
It would be good if you have your own estimation and vision on the project development, so you have an understanding of how much the project should cost and how long it will take. This will definitely help to get better vision on outsourcing software development company capabilities and understand if the company is able to achieve your goals and yield excellent results.
The outsourcing team should follow transparent approach in software development. You should always know what is happening with your project or what is doing each member of your dedicated team. You should receive regular (daily, weekly) reports on the status of the project, so that the work is completely visible and you can easily coordinate it and give the feedback and requirements or simply ensure the deliverables match the requirements and the work is going in accordance with the plan.
The very important item while choosing an outsourcing software development company is to ensure the latter has all the necessary resources to produce high quality results and handle effective communication. The vendor must have the required environment for the work: hardware equipment, operating environments and databases, different programs and applications for development and testing. The team has to be versatile with various versioning and reporting tools, like SVN, CSV, VSS, BaseCamp, Redmine and etc. to optimize project management, workflow and reporting process, so you can easily monitor the status of the project.
It would be useful to visit personally each potential software development service provider to meet the team face-to face and see the specialists in work.
There are many other very important things you should take into consideration, but these tips are primary areas you should concentrate on and hopefully can help to choose the best IT minds and reach the business effectiveness.
