Common Outsourcing Issues in Software Development

Common Outsourcing Issues in Software Development

Outsourcer FreezePro Software is an experienced and competitive team. The company agreed to tell about the most common outsourcing issues in the field of software development:

1. Trust issues and the lack of authenticity

This problem can be solved with a sufficient level of communication between customers and company’s representatives. As well, do not concentrate on email and other messengers in terms of communication. Initiating a video call can help you overcome trust issues. Even with small projects, do not forget to communicate on IP rights and contractual terms.

2. Inadequate transparency

Understanding methods, learning about previous projects, and hearing references can help you decide if you want to work with the particular vendor. Moreover, if the project is truly vital for your business, try to be close to vendor’s team for at least two weeks to see actual conditions.

However, vendors might remain untruthful about who is actually working on your project. Non-transparent culture in the organization might even worsen this situation. This is a low margin kind of business, so providing junior instead of senior is quite an ordinary case. If the quality of the outcome fits your requirements, you might not consider that as a problem.

3. Bizarre communicative patterns

As we have already mentioned, communication is a constituent part of any software project. That is why you should take this feature into account when you hire testers, developers, project managers etc. In fact, profound communicative skills may be even more important than other characteristics for a developer. The level of English should also be taken into consideration. If the team has no basic skills in English, it can create various problems for a project manager (project managers ought to have fluent skills in both communication and English language).

You should not forget about scrum, which was implemented for having solid alignment and communication as frequent as possible. Consider being present on daily meetings, sprint planning and retrospectives. We recommend focusing your attention on the maturity level. What we mean is – you look for a better company and lower prices while the company looks for clients that are bigger than the service provider is. To avoid future misunderstandings, try to be honest on that matter.

As a conclusion, we offer you three paths that may result in win-win cooperation

1. Vendors and customers have the same level of maturity. Check out if your process and budget expectations match beforehand. The customer must be able to pay for the outcome; vendor must be able to provide its customer with a proper product. If so, this partnership will work just fine.

2. Vendor’s level of maturity is lower than costumer’s. Of course, the customer will take risks in this case. Quality and final budget might rise because of the lack of competence. If the customer is assured that the company will eventually reach the needed level, it might work as a long-term strategic partnership. The vendor will try hard to satisfy you.

3. Vendor’s level of maturity is higher than customer’s. It is the best decision if you are going to run the project you have been dreaming of for many years. It involves customer’s knowledge in his or her sphere of knowledge and vendor’s software development and business skills. In such case, the vendor should take responsibility to educate the customer. Moreover, responsibility areas should be talked over in advance to avoid frustration and misunderstandings.