If you chose an IT partner for outsourcing cooperation, you’re halfway through. But you shouldn’t rest on your laurels because the real work is just beginning. Managing appointed experts from another company remotely may be a challenge. Don’t panic! It’s enough that you apply the rules below, and your cooperation will be friendly and successful. Good luck!
Rule 1: create a clear plan and present your expectations
Regardless of how good a team you have, you won’t come to an understanding without a clear plan and guidelines. The most important task is to create a complex declaration of the project’s scope with your outsourcing partner, within which you’ll determine individual stages of the project, assign tasks for them, provide measurable indicators of their execution, and estimate the time for each task and stage. To facilitate work, it’s worth investing in the right management tools for both companies. In the IT world, the most popular are Jira Software, Azure Dev Ops, Monday.com, Asana, or ClickUp, and you can easily assign tasks to each team member, set priorities, and track development with them. Many of these programs can be integrated with the project’s schedule so that you can monitor the work’s effects faster and more effectively.
Rule 2: Appoint a leader and oversee the effects of work
After agreeing on a plan and presenting your expectations, you need to appoint the leader of your outsourcing partner, who will be responsible for managing the team, overseeing work, and communication between the two parties. It should be a manager with a few years of experience working on a given product and technology to answer every question. Their key task is to oversee the development of work according to the schedule and take care of transparent communication both internally and externally (with the client or other parties of the project). It’s equally important to support and motivate team members and react quickly to possible problems.
Rule 3: Get to know your team and appreciate their work
The last step, if not the most important, is getting to know your outsourcing team well. It’s easier to trust people who you give our project to if you invest time to build valuable relations outside conference calls. You should set up regular face-to-face meetings to discuss essential stages of your project. It’s also good to regularly appreciate the efforts of individual team members and celebrate every success, however small, to motivate everybody to work. While managing a remote team, clear communication daily is crucial to react to any questions and challenges that appear quickly. Slack, Zoom, or Microsoft Teams are the most popular communication platforms among developers, as you can manage the communication more easily within specific tasks or threads without engaging the whole team.
Looking for a competent developer team? Let’s work together!
Write to us or visit us in our office!
