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How To Manage Offshore Teams Effectively

How To Manage Offshore Teams Effectively?

Hey guys, today in this article, we will discuss how to manage offshore teams effectively? So keep reading.

Introduction

It can be hard to set up a remote team, share knowledge, and make sure internal processes and workflows work together when you outsource your IT work. The first release is also a big problem.

Well, it’s not always easy to start a new business. If you and your vendor know how to run a remote development team well—prioritize, delegate, and set up a supportive atmosphere, it will be easier to deal with problems.

In this article, we’re going to talk about how to manage offshore teams effectively when you outsource work from offshore development companies (e.g. TatvaSoft). This way, you can get ready for the experience.

An extended team, a managed team, and an outsourced team are some of the types of IT staff augmentation services that companies think about when they decide to hire more people for the job.

The main difference between them is what the customer wants at the start and how much the customer lets the vendor run the project.

Table of Content:

Types of Offshore Development Teams

Problems faced by the Businesses during offshore software development

Managing Offshore Software Development Team

Conclusion

According to Statista, the IT-outsourcing market could be worth $413.7 billion by the end of 2021, which is a lot of money. It’s not surprising, since more and more businesses have been interested in doing work in another country in the last few years, but why?

After getting into the international market, offshore software providers now have a lot of potential for US and European businesses.

Offshore services are usually done in countries where the cost of labor is much lower than in the nation where the solutions are obtained. This is very financially viable for the IT industry.

However, there are still some things to think about, because it can be hard to manage offshore team members that are a long way away from you.

If you want to learn more about how to manage offshore teams and why it’s important for your business, read on.

Types Of Offshore Development Teams

Extended Team

Extra development capacity can be added to the client’s existing team while they remain in charge of both product development and managing offshore teams effectively.

For short-term collaboration, teams that work together are called “extended teams.” This model is best for short-term collaboration project management when you need to quickly grow your project and produce a product on time.

Managed Team

A well-managed team works well for projects that last a long time. A vendor puts together a group of people to work on a project, and they all share the risk and commitment for the end result.

They don’t work with the client’s in-house team. The outsourced project team reports to the client’s product owner, but the client’s in-house project manager is in charge.

Many businesses have found that establishing a dedicated development team can be very cost-effective, flexible, easy to grow, transparent, and easy to work with.

Outsourced Team

The outsourced team is the most common way to work together. A vendor is in charge of developing young talent and delivering the solution on time from the start of the project to the end.

In this process, managing offshore development teams are not as difficult as it may sound if the management plan is effective.

Also, ideas and requirements are given by the client, and the vendor makes a custom solution that meets the client’s business needs.

Depending on your requirements and budget, you can opt for any option.

Problems Faced By The Businesses During Offshore Software Development

High Staff Turnover

When you manage an offshore software development team, it can be hard. There are a lot of things you need to think about before you start.

Communication problems are particularly common. Look at them all. Turnover of high-level staff To run a team where experts come and go all the time isn’t very easy.

Because you have to train each new member of your team, it takes longer to get things done.

When you are looking for a software development company, you should pay close attention to the HR brand when you do.

You should check to see if the workers work in a pleasant setting, have the right tools, and have a lot of chances to learn and grow.

If the vendor you choose has a low-profit margin, it means that employees are happy with their jobs.

Loss Of Product Knowledge

Problem:

There are different ways to pass on knowledge. People on a project or with a client can do this to keep information from going out of the door.

Any way, knowledge that isn’t shared costs money. When the whole process is reworked from the ground up, there is a lot of waste in the company.

If your vendor has a lot of turnovers and doesn’t have a good plan in place to pass on knowledge, your team will be slow, which could cause a lot of project delays.

Solution:

It’s important to find out if the vendor cares about passing on knowledge and can come up with a good plan for doing so. As the project progresses, you can see how speedily your team has learned about the project.

You can also see how quickly they have set up the Development, QA/Staging/Production environments, as well as the systems used by the whole team for deployment and debugging.

Keep in mind that the quickest way to transfer knowledge from a client to a vendor is to have a new team put the new software into use in a real-world setting.

It’s also important that the vendor respects the culture of knowledge-sharing on your project, so make sure that they understand what you want.

There are a lot of ways to pass on knowledge in a project, not just through documentation. There are regular Q&A sessions, live training, one-on-one meetings, tech talks, coffee breaks, and so on.

Cultural Differences And Ethics

There are bound to be differences between the people in the company because of their traditions and customs. Managing teams with people who grew up in different places can change the dynamics of your workplace.

Cultural barriers should be addressed as soon as possible when these differences do not work well with each other. It doesn’t even matter how small the cultural difference is.

It can have a big impact on relationships at work, from basic courtesy practices to how work is done.

If you look at Vietnam’s language skills, they aren’t very good. This is a great score, but the metaphors and other cultural meanings could not be thoroughly grasped by Vietnamese people living there.

Misunderstanding can happen very quickly because of this.

Solution:

1. Simplify Your Communication Channels.

There are more chances that people on the offshore team won’t be able to speak your language fully. The best thing to do is use simple words and get right to the point.

As well, you should try to avoid metaphors and be very clear when giving directions.

2. Conduct A Culture Raining For Both Home And Offshore Teams.

You and your team will be able to learn about each other’s cultural practices and beliefs this way. Undertaking training and workshops can also help you figure out the communication styles of everyone on your team.

This can help to avoid problems in the future, which can be hard to avoid.

Communication Issues

There are a lot of businesses that are worried about the language gap and communication issues. This is true even if you and your team are on different continents.

You’ll have to deal with a time difference. If there isn’t enough communication, the project might be delayed or people might not understand what they need to do. I don’t know.

The answer is simple: You should set up meetings in advance. Communication tools like Skype, Gmail, and Slack allow you to stay in touch and keep up with the project’s progress.

Managing Offshore Software Development Team

Product Vision Sharing

I think a lot of people make the error of only giving offshore developers simple tasks and not telling them about the bigger picture.

Don’t make the same mistake of not providing them the whole picture of what the product will look like.

Everyone who works on a project needs to know what the aim is and where it’s going. As they work on the project, show them what you want the product to look like.

They also need to know and be able to see what they need to do next. They want to know if they have a job and where the project is going. Make sure to tell them about how to plan for the release and the next sprint.

Time Difference Factors

Differences in time frames can make it hard to work with teams that are spread out across the world. However, if you use overlapping hours, you can get around this problem.

If, for example, someone moves to India, the semi mark of the shift there will be the same time as the start of a shift in Britain.

By taking into account the time difference between you and your offshore team, you can create more organizational skills for your local and offshore teams.

Your offshore team could be anywhere from eight to 15 hours ahead of you. If there is a time difference between two teams, make sure that meetings, scrum calls, and weekly catch-up calls happen at the same time.

Clear Communication

Communication with your offshore team is also very important for your work. If you don’t speak the same language as your workers, it can be hard to show them what to do.

For this, use the software that is meant to make it easier for people in your company to communicate with each other, like Outlook emails, Skype, or Zoom.

An immediate and efficient way to communicate with your programmers and ask for clarification where the verbal communication wasn’t clear is to send them a text message or send them an email.

As a result, you can keep an eye on the progress and always tell the offshore software development team what is important.

As a bonus, it’s a good idea to set up regular meetings for Q&A sessions during the project’s end. This tip can make the project go a lot faster and better, so it will be done much quicker and more effectively.

Collaboration Tools

People on the offshore development team have a lot of trouble understanding what the project is all about and how it works. One of the main reasons it shows up is because each team has a different development environment.

So, you can get low-quality software, bugs that aren’t found until later, and a long list of problems with the way the software works together.

To solve this problem, it is important for all remote developers to use the tools that have been set up for software development, control, and improvement.

This will help you to make sure that all of the important steps in the project plan are done on time, and it will also help you to handle an offshore development team more effectively.

Regular Meetings

Every day, we can hold meetings by phone or on Slack and they work well. There are other ways to build a team, but video can help. As a manager, it is very important that you learn about your team and build real relationships with them.

Video can also help you figure out people’s feelings and moods better, and this can make it easier for you to understand them better.

You need to make sure your team is pleased and getting work done. Because it’s easy to hide behind a keyboard. If they’re working on a project, you can always ask them how they’re getting along with it.

Treat Offshore Team As Partner

Choose an offshore software development company that you can trust. They’re more than that, and you can trust them to do a good job for you.

If you want to build and keep a high level of collaboration, you need to put the hierarchy aside and treat them as a partner.

Because your offshore software development team is part of your business, they will go the extra mile for you if you treat them like they are.

Make sure they have more overlap time with you or change their shift to match your schedule. Even if it’s simple, they will do what they can to make it happen.

A good way to build a good relationship with your offshore team is to show them how much time, effort, and technical skills they put into building software, spend time with them to get to know them and ask them for ideas on how to build better software.

Don’t MicroManage

No one really likes to be told what to do. It’s also hard to grow your development team if you don’t trust and empower them to do the tasks which need to be done. That person should be able to lead the team from afar.

If you’re having trouble getting things done right, think about whether your offshore team doesn’t have a lot of senior-level leadership.

It’s a mistake that many businesses make when they just try to hire a lot of cheap programmers.

The best thing for both of you and your offshore partner is for your offshore team to be able to manage itself and be good at what they do.

Make sure you have enough senior developers and, if possible, a project manager on your team.

Conclusion

All in all, putting together an offshore team now is a good and profitable way for businesses to do their jobs well.

Despite this, there are still some things to think about before hiring an offshore development team, like how to plan and manage the communication and workflow as well as project goals and knowledge, for example.

It’s not easy to run a software development team that works from home. When you work with a vendor who has worked with remote teams before, it will be easier for you to work with the offshore team and reach your goals.

Relationships with your partner don’t just happen. They take time. It’s important to move in small steps, letting each stage establish on the one before it.

If you think about the problems above how to manage offshore teams effectively and take steps to avoid them, you will be able to build a strong team of offshore developers and come up with a strong solution.

About Yashwant Shakyawal

Avatar for Yashwant Shakyawal
Yashwant Shakyawal is a passionate, innovative, and curious digital marketing specialist with experience in Social Media Optimization, web content creation, Content Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, and brand marketing.

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