5 pitfalls you can fall into when outsourcing software development

Before ordering outsourced software development services, you should be aware of the potential issues that may come your way. This article will tell you about some of them, so you can avoid them.

1. Barriers to communication

The problem of communications can arise when not the final section of the process is transferred, but only one step, while the rest of the sections “freeze” without having persons responsible for them. To avoid inconsistencies, you need to properly structure the work.

2. An incorrect understanding of the project’s scope.

In order for the scope and consistency of your product to match between you and the software developers that will be working on your project, you must properly communicate this information.

In this case, a need specification document might be a useful approach. The presence of such a document, as well as the clarity of the criteria set forth in it, will be the first step toward ensuring that the results provided by a third-party company satisfy your expectations in the end.

3. Issues with code quality

It can be difficult for young independent development teams to determine if they meet quality standards when building an application. Especially if your business offers non-technical services and does not have programming skills.

It should be emphasized that the external development team must maintain clear code and maintain it.

Quality checkpoints should be created ahead of time to track changes in code quality. You also need regular team briefings. In addition, outsourcing teams should regularly review the quality of their code. Find out if they carry out these checks before signing a contract with them.

4. Stakeholder uncertainty

If a company wants to deal exclusively with the formation of requirements, in addition to developers, it is necessary to outsource the Project Manager, analyst and testers, otherwise you should not count on the high-quality performance of the task.

When there are no formalized requirements, programmers “think out” themselves, but their vision often does not coincide with what the customer imagines. Hence – a mismatch of expectations.

If there are no testers, programmers debug only the basic “behavior” of the program. And when it goes to work, errors begin to appear in those scenarios that programmers could not guess about. Hence – dissatisfaction with the quality of work.

The absence of a Project Manager leads to the constant emergence of new wishes from the Product Owner, which often contradict each other. Programmers begin to rush between tasks, and as a result, deadlines and budgets are inflated, but there is still no finished result.

5. Look for loopholes in contracts before signing them.

A contract delivered to a contractor with ambiguous language might be troublesome. A loophole for an outsourcing business, for example, may cost you a lot of money.

The trick is that a properly-written contract may serve as a model for the outsourced business, as well as a safety net for you in the event that something goes wrong.