The world has become technology-driven, now more than ever. If you own or are a part of a tech company, the chances are you have already done some outsourcing development. At least you gave it thought, or it is something you plan to do. There’s no reason to avoid it as it is something that can help you in the firm development in a manner that is cost-effective and can reduce time spent on a project and increase the talent pool active on it. While it is almost an ideal way to achieve your goals in most instances, it could easily go astray. There are many flaws and dangers involved with this method and you need to be aware of them before you make this move. In this article, we’ll be talking about common pitfalls in outsourcing development & how to avoid them. This piece is worthy of your time if you are aiming to have outsiders working for you on projects that matter. The dangers we’re talking about are worth knowing and should be avoided if possible. Let’s see what they are.
Poor Quality of the Final Product
There are a lot of people who turned their heads towards outscoring development. This means you’ll hear many stories, and some of them will be negative. These stories come from people and firms who had a bad experience with it. The principal reason things are like this for them is that they didn’t work with trusted partners such as parallelstaff.com but rather went for cheaper options that failed to deliver. An approach like this will only save you money in the beginning. Later when it matters you’ll find yourself in the situation where you lost both time and money, while gaining subpar product in the process. When this happens it’s too late to try and clean the stains. You should have been smarter earlier in the process.
Of course, not everything is dark, and this mistake, same as others we’ll discuss here can be avoided or at least mitigated. What you need to do first is to talk to your partners about the quality of the product you want to achieve. Make sure they understand the values you hold and the work that needs to be done to honor them. Also, be responsible yourself. While you could trust your outsourcing partners; it doesn’t free of responsibility to be involved with their work. It is one of the ways to ensure that deadlines, quality, and performance are kept up to the standard.
The Difference in Space and Time Continuum
Do not worry, we won’t go into time travel like Christopher Nolan did in Tenet, but we’ll be close to it. Of course, time-traveling is not possible (yet, we’re looking at you Elon Musk) which means that there’s a chance you and people in charge of outsourcing development won’t be working on the project at the same time. Sometimes people you hire will be spread across the world; not only in different countries but on a different continent, which means there’s be a lot of habits and time zones interchanged. The world is a global marketplace, and business is being done regardless of your location. While many issues regarding this approach can be easily overcome, handling time zones could prove to be tricky. The chances are you’ll have an urgent issue to handle, while the people you employed will be sleeping and practically unavailable for hours while you are at work. Having a situation like this could be fatal for the entire project, and you need to be able to handle it the right way.
The good thing is that this mode of operation has been around for a while now, and people found ways to go around it. The best strategy you can apply is called FTS Strategy. It is an abbreviation for following the sun. It revolves around the principle that your employees in different time zones work while it is nighttime where you at. This means that you’ll have all the work they’ve done available in the morning when you hit the office. Many costly mistakes can be fixed this way f not even avoided completely. We should also mention that this way all parties involved will be on top of their game for a longer period just like King James is.
Failure to Establish Proper Communication Channels
Same as with any other project you might have during your tenure at a certain company, it all starts with proper communicating. But, with outsourcing development, it becomes even more vital, as you’ll be separated by space and time as we already pointed out. Communication is one of the issues most projects of this kind encounter at the mere start. It is not hard to keep the communication channels open when you have to deal with time zones, physical and language borders, and cultural differences among all parties involved. All of this combined could pose a real threat to the success of the venture. If people working together are not on the same page and do not understand each other something is gravely wrong.
Of course, this is a stumbling block, but not one that can’t be jumped over. The place to start would be the hierarchy of the outsourcing partner you have. If you are in charge of the project on your side, be sure to be on the same page with the person who is on the other. It is not enough to cooperate and communicate only through work and reports; it is essential to have frequent meetings and conversations. While your partner might be overseas it is crucial to have at least one person over there you can always rely on the right info in a manner that is fully understandable. You need to be able to predict where communication issues might arise during the duration of your cooperation. These problems are not solely tied to the start of the venture, they could pop out later, and you need to be prepared for them.