8 Steps for a Successful Software Outsourcing Project

Businesses both large and small rely on software outsourcing services to develop custom applications for their customers and internal use. By doing so, these companies save time and money, and typically produce a better product as a result. 

However, not all outsourcing partners offer the same quality. This guide will show managers how to successfully outsource development and build exceptional software every time.

1. Select a Software Development Partner

Before you can start the development process itself, it’s important to choose the right outsourcing partner. But there are thousands of potential companies out there. How do you choose?

The best software outsourcing companies will have a proven track record--demonstrated through past work with recognizable software and Fortune 500 companies. They should also be transparent about their hiring process and eager to show potential clients that they only work with the highest quality engineers.

It is also important that you ensure that your development partner can communicate well and regularly with your staff. This means working with a company that only retains software engineers fluent in English and setting up communication protocols before a contract is signed. Finally, ask about contractor working hours. The most successful projects are those where the in-house team and augmented staff members are working at the same time. 

The three most popular software outsourcing models are staff augmentation, managed services, and autonomous delivery teams. 

Staff augmentation is widely used by large tech companies and small businesses alike. It involves hiring a limited number of programmers and other specialists to supplement an existing in-house team. These contractors only work as-needed and this type of outsourcing model is ideal for companies with strong internal development teams and experienced project managers.

On the other hand, some companies opt to hire an entire outside development team. This group of experienced software engineers handles the bulk of the development process, while an in-house project manager supervises them day-to-day and communicates with stakeholders.

Finally, autonomous delivery teams are the most advanced form of software outsourcing. This approach involves outsourcing the entire development process, including the project manager, to an external group. They will transform the client’s ideas and requirements into a fully-functional piece of custom software.

The first step in any software development project is selecting the right outsourcing model for your needs. Most projects follow one of two basic approaches: linear and flexible. 

Linear software development models are structured rigidly and designed to build straightforward software quickly and under budget. The most popular linear methodology used today is Waterfall. Teams that use this approach will move from one step of the development lifecycle to the next linearly. This keeps the project on track.

The major drawback associated with Waterfall and other linear methodologies is the lack of customer feedback. No one outside of the development team and a select group of stakeholders has access to the software before its official release, which means that engineers lack crucial feedback from end-users.

Flexible software development, on the other hand, focuses on creating a minimum viable product, or iteration. This bare-bones product is released to end-users as soon as possible to gather feedback and create an application that customers’ love. Agile is the most popular flexible development methodology and is used widely in Silicon Valley.

Agile development projects can suffer from a lack of structure. The software iteration cycle means that teams can struggle to finish development on-time since new ideas are constantly being submitted and features added. This type of approach requires a strong project manager who can keep the group focused.

It’s key that managers regularly review software requirements and update tasks. This ensures that development projects remain on-task and finish on-time. 

This is especially important when following a flexible software development methodology like Agile. That’s why Agile project managers regularly create product and sprint backlogs. The product backlog is a list of all the features required in the final product. By regularly checking and updating this document, project managers can narrow their focus to only the most important components.

A sprint backlog, on the other hand, is a narrow list of requirements that must be completed during that particular software iteration. It helps keep the larger development team focused by keeping them accountable and focused on goals. 

Software security and data privacy protection are two of the most important issues facing the tech world today. That’s because the number of data breaches continues to increase every year. Even more troubling, researchers have found that a hacker attempts to break into a computer roughly “every 39 seconds on average.”

The best way to fight these malicious actors is by integrating software security into every step of the development process. Before outsourcing development, it is important to ask companies about their approach to data privacy and preferred software security methodology.

In addition, it is important to bring in qualified software security experts during the QA testing stage, at a minimum, and preferably during development itself. A software developer engineer in test, in particular, can write automated programs that proactively search for vulnerabilities and offer solutions. 

Extensive QA testing is mandatory for all modern software development projects. That’s because it not only helps protect valuable consumer data, like addresses, banking numbers, and purchase habits. It also ensures better quality code, improves user experience and interface design, and creates a better final product.

Companies should start with functional testing, which is designed to see if all of the software’s components work as intended. Engineers will verify user interfaces and workflows, and conduct black box and white box testing to verify that internal structures operate correctly.

Developers should also conduct performance testing during this stage of the process, verifying that the software works under real-world conditions. This involves stress, load, and endurance testing. Engineers will find weak links in the software and increase processing speed, efficiency, and reliability. 

The final step in a successful software outsourcing project is to train select in-house staff members to maintain the software. This is important because programming work doesn’t end when the software is released to consumers.

This maintenance team will be responsible for responding to customer tickets and building fixes for the inevitable bugs. In addition, this team will regularly solicit suggested improvements from end-users and will develop new components and improvements themselves. 

Many companies opt to handle this task in-house, assigning several members of their permanent development team to the role. Other businesses choose to reduce their day-to-day responsibilities by outsourcing these responsibilities to augmented staff members.

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Created on Sep 12th 2019 09:27. Viewed 4,358 times.

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