Ways To Overcome The Challenges Of Offshore Development

Offshore development centers have become the more globalized pool of resources. The increased usage of these centers has been included in the outsourcing development project’s recent trends. Businesses are selecting offshore developers for their project or the project they are assigned to.

According to a study by Gartner, so far, India is leading the way in providing services and software with over $4 billion in export in the year 2000. Israel, China, and Ireland are also offering a high range of offshore development services.

Working with offshore resources brings few challenges to the project. Businesses need to take some steps that would help them to make things go smoothly. In an offshore development process, companies have to work with a project team that is many time zone away from them. There are many factors that influence the coordination between the companies and offshore teams such as different cultural perspectives. To keep the process going evenly and for great results, it is necessary to have an effective communication there.

To ensure the coordinated coding effort and established communication, here are some tips that would help the companies:

Evaluate The Talent Of The Team

• Choosing Developers: Companies should involve in the selection process of the team, if possible. They can conduct technical interviews with developers to evaluate their skill. With the help of their own developers, companies can create few sets of questions. These questions would be asked from development languages which are related to the requirements of the project.
  

With the help of these interviews, companies get sure that they have understood the developer’s way of working and the services they are claiming to provide. With the offshore resources, companies do not have the advantage of constant interaction with the team. That's why it is necessary for them to pay more attention in the selection process.

• Ask For References: Companies can ask the candidate for the offshore projects, they have completed successfully. Plus, their time longing with such projects. It is necessary for the companies to make sure that the candidate is matching with their development needs. For that, they can determine the complexity of the apps that candidates have developed.

• Timing Is Important:-To work with a team that differs in time zone is useful. It can be understood by an example: Suppose there is a task or a bug report that needs to be done by next day. The working hours of that particular company have been over. They can work out the task to their offshore development center to fix the bug. And they can get it the next morning when they arrive at their office timing. It will extend workday. It can be very beneficial for the projects that need the quick turnaround.

Sometimes it is difficult to communicate while operating across different time zones. To talk on phone or face-to-face, become an issue. When there is no need of a fast turnaround, companies can communicate via e-mail. But if the conference or video call is required, then one of them have to be flexible with their time.

Technical Issues

• Beginning Should Be Smaller: Companies can start with a small project or application to evaluate the team of offshore developers. The development team must return good code, work well with existing team and meet deadlines. If they get successful in all these aspects, then companies can entrust them with their larger projects.
• Create A Website: By using a website as the central repository for task clarification, code documentation, and schedule listings can be proven useful for the distributed team. If both the companies keep the latest version of the work report and documentation on the website, then they would operate on the same page without any difficulty.

• Infrastructure:- In developing countries such as India, taking a continuous step toward infrastructure development may minimize the problems related to data and voice network. But there are possibilities of disruptions and glitches. It is necessary for the businesses to develop a backup plan for the information exchange. In the case of any breakdown, the information and progress report should be there to resume the development process.

Conclusion

It is not very difficult to coordinate with the overseas group or offshore developers. By working out together on the project and the difficulties, makes the project succeed. On the other side, if there would be poor communication and coordination, then the project will never reach its potential. The above-explained challenges and precautions will surely help the businesses to have a good understanding of the offshore development process. It also makes the project completed on time without any difficulties. Companies just need to be alert while making the decision. There are several companies that have already started to use offshore development. It is a cost-effective way to fulfill requirements of the development staff. There is a high possibility that smaller companies will soon adopt this.