Outsourcing might seem like a scary business – after all, you’re going OUTside your capabilities to get a job done. And with the super-wide diversity and plethora of skills required for software development, your best bet is to rely on a team of developers to get your development job done.
In which lies your silver lining – since you have to rely on outsource to complete software development, it means there must be others who have to do too, right? Exactly!
Outsourcing software development projects is a widely accepted practice, and many firms offer that service. However, you must follow some tips and strategies to pick the right outsourcing choice, so you can get a high-quality software.
Ask For Collective Experience
One of the top perks of outsourcing to a team is that you can benefit from an amount of experience that would have otherwise taken a single person several lifetimes.
When you outsource to a team, everyone collectively works towards a single goal – of creating a high-quality software for you. Your software development vendor would hold meetings with their team to leverage their critical skills and overcome difficult challenges.
It isn’t uncommon for these meetings to have 50-60 developers at a time. Meaning, you get a collective experience of 50-60 lifetimes!
In a meeting, the team shares their insights and cross-pollinate information to deliver creative and effective solutions. These insights can improve the quality of each developer’s work, which ultimately results in a transformational software for you.
Ask For Portfolio That Can Substantiate Relevant Work
It’s a common practice to ask for portfolio for previous work as it validates a person’s expertise in their field. However, in software development, you need to take some extra precautions considering that it is costly work – a simple software development project can cost at least $50,000.
That’s not all, you might want to consider meeting your outsourcing partner in person. This will let you evaluate their strengths and decide whether they have the potential for success for your particular project. When you meet them, you’re essentially looking for answers to these questions:
- Do they use agile development methodology?
It is a process that focuses on collaboration and flexibility to maximize user (your) satisfaction.
- Are they offering DevOps?
Software development is incomplete without deployment. Therefore, choose a partner that offers services in both domains – development as well as deployment.
- How up-to-date are they with latest trends and technologies?
Software development is constantly evolving – a company up-to-date with latest technologies and standards potentially means best software development practices are adopted.
- What about security?
In the corporate world, security is and should be the top priority of every firm. Your outsource partner should offer top-notch protection against data breaches, unauthorized access, and other security threats.
- Do they have ample safeguards to ensure business continuity?
When your software is developed and deployed, it must stay that way until chosen otherwise. So, your outsource partner should have backup plans in place in case of power outages, disasters, or any other disruption.
Read also: https://jawsjs.com/what-is-software-development/
Ask About Their QA and Testing Methods
Quality assurance (QA) is an inherent part of software development as there are bound to be bugs in a software. Therefore, ask your outsource partner about their methodology for QA. Typical, quality assurance methods include:
- Static testing,
- Dynamic testing,
- Regression testing,
- White- and black-box testing, and
- Visual testing
Wrap Up
With the answers to some of the questions posed above, you’ll be better prepared to select the right outsource partner for your software development project. A partner that is focused on not only quality but also the success of your software.
And with these potent insights, you’ll be able to successfully outsource software development with a cost-effective and result-oriented solution.
The article was written in cooperation with the experts of SoftKraft