How to Ace Comms With An Outsourced Development Team

Software development outsourcing is a common practice that offers benefits like cost savings and faster time-to-market.

However, it also brings its share of challenges.

In a 2022 survey by UpCity, 21% of respondents reported that they experienced communication challenges with their outsourced partners.

Communication breakdowns can be particularly nasty, because they cause a cascade of issues further down the chain. Not surprising, 14% of respondents in the UpCity survey missed deadlines, 12% had issues with vendors failing to follow directions, and 9% dealt with poor quality work. 

How can you master communication with an outsourced development team? 

Best Practices for Managing Outsourced Software Development Teams 

1. It Starts With Your Documentation

Ensure all project requirements, specifications and goals are thoroughly and clearly documented. Many organizations use documentation tools like Confluence or Notion to maintain shared knowledge bases.

That said, a tool is only useful if it helps someone do their job.

Your documentation needs to be in a format that is easy to parse and consume by the outsourced team. If it is loaded with "tribal knowledge," outdated or incomplete information, your external development team is going to run into trouble.

That's one reason why we developed Archie, our AI-powered product architect. Archie helps produce standardized, comprehensive documentation that is crucial for managing outsourced development teams.

The way Archie works is simple. It consumes inputs from various stakeholders as simple text prompts, and it generates full requirements, specifications and designs in minutes rather than months. This ensures that your outsourced team has clear, concise and complete information to work with, reducing the risk of misunderstandings and errors.

(By the way, Archie is free to get started - Try it here.)

2. Establish Clear Communication Protocols and Expectations

Define clear communication channels and protocols. Specify which tools to use for different types of communication (e.g., email for formal updates, Slack for quick questions, project management in Jira, Trello or Asana, etc.).

In addition, schedule frequent meetings to keep everyone aligned. Daily stand-ups, weekly progress meetings and monthly reviews can help ensure consistent communication and address issues promptly.

Incorporate all of this in the onboarding process. Your outsourced team members should receive access to your documentation (including Archie), relevant areas of the code base, and they should receive a thorough walkthrough of communication protocols and expectations. 

Remote work is tricky. Working across time zones — and continents — can be challenging, but setting up clear and predictable avenues of communication will allow you to frequently review progress, address issues and celebrate successes.

This helps keep the team motivated, ensures that no misunderstandings creep up, and it keeps your project on schedule. 

3. Use Time Zone Differences to Your Advantage

One of the benefits of outsourcing with an offshore software development team is that they give you around-the-clock software development.

When your onshore team logs off for the day, they can hand off their work to the offshore team. Then, when the work day is through for the offshore team, the onshore team can review and provide feedback on the work that they completed overnight.

4. Foster a Sensitive and Collaborative Culture

Communication with an outsourced development team works best when everyone is coming from a place of mutual respect, regardless of where they fall in the organizational chart.

If working with offshore outsourcing companies, be aware of cultural differences and train your team to respect and understand these differences. Not only is this a great learning opportunity for personal growth, but it will also establish a strong working relationship.

More broadly, do what you can to foster a collaborative culture. Encourage open communication, mutual respect and collaboration. Building a strong team culture, even with remote members, is crucial for long-term success.

When team members respect each other's perspectives and contributions, it creates an environment where everyone feels valued and motivated to work together effectively.

How Archie Elevates the Software Development Process

We already covered how Archie generates complete and standardized documentation from stakeholder inputs in minutes. This ensures your outsourced team has clear, concise and accurate information.

Even better, Archie is designed to augment your software development efforts throughout the product lifecycle.

Accelerated Discovery and Design

Archie not only rapidly accelerates the discovery phase, but it also helps with product ideation. Archie will detect things you may not have thought of and make suggestions to enhance the value and soundness of your project, and it can help surface regulatory hurdles ahead of time.

Archie concludes the discovery and design phases by producing initial designs and detailed architecture, facilitating a smooth handoff to development.

Improved Delivery

Archie enhances the delivery phase by providing a comprehensive context for your development projects. It compiles all necessary information into a cohesive "operating system" for your team, ensuring that every detail is easily accessible and up-to-date.

Archie improves the accuracy and efficiency of the development process. This means fewer errors, faster turnaround times and a higher likelihood of meeting project deadlines and staying within budget.

With Archie, your team can focus on refining and enhancing the final product rather than getting bogged down by repetitive tasks and miscommunications.

Human Oversight

While Archie automates many tasks, it's not meant to replace your software engineers. Instead, think of it like staff augmentation. Archie allows human professionals to focus on creative problem-solving, removing the time consuming grunt work and ensuring projects meet expectations and adapt to changes.

Wrapping It Up

Almost a quarter of organizations working with outsourced software development teams struggle with communication. Poor communication can lead to a slew of breakdowns, from missed deadlines to poor quality work and cost overruns.

In order to take advantage of the benefits of outsourcing, it's important to be proactive with your project management and engage team members throughout the process. Tools like Archie can help, allowing your talent to stay connected and focus on what they do best.

Next Steps

• Give Archie a try (it's free!)
• Read more about Archie in our documentation