For many IT start-up companies, the question of how to outsource app development is popping up more and more frequently. Around 50% of all IT companies have outsourced their development at least once.
There are many reasons why companies in the app development industry see outsourcing as a viable option. One of the main reasons being reducing costs and faster development process.
This way, you can get very skilled developers from all across the world to work for you, talented people that you might not have found if you were opting for in-house development.
With that being said, here are a few tips on how to properly outsource development.
Have a clear vision of what you want to do
As in any other business, you firstly need to know exactly what your product will be. You now work with individual people, so having a deep understanding of your idea is crucial to provide effective communication, and minimize the risk of mishaps during the development process.
Ask yourself a few questions. Who are my clients going to be? What exactly is my app going to do? How’s it going to do it? What features am I going to include? How is it going to stand out from other apps?
Study the developers
Whether you found people who are willing to work for you by outsourcing companies, or by all sorts of freelancer sites you’ll always want to study and select your potential team before you put it to work.
After you’ve got a clear vision of your app, it will be much easier to set criteria when searching for people. Take a look at their portfolios, examine them, and then select the ones best suited for your needs.
Set clear goals
Because long-distance communication could be more difficult than face-to-face ones, because of time-zones, connectivity, etc, the first thing you’ll want to do is to set clear goals to your outsourced developers.
That way, they’ll get a deeper understanding of what to do, how to do it, and when to do it.
Have proper communication
As we’ve said before, outsourcing has its own drawbacks too. One of them being a less efficient communication process. However, you can overcome this by clearly establishing the means of communication. Be it through email, skype, whatever.
Another important thing is to talk to your developers frequently, give them weekly or daily updates, request updates from them. That way you’ll minimize the risk of misunderstanding, and you’ll potentially avoid a lot of damage if it ever happens.
Ask Questions
Speaking of potential misunderstanding, asking a lot of questions is a great way to minimize the risk of it. Get to know your developers, ask them more about their background.
It’s also a means of testing your team’s communication abilities. When it comes to outsourcing, you don’t really want to deal with an unresponsive employee.
Conclusion
All in all, outsourcing app development can get quite tricky. Sometimes it serves as a gold-mine, hiding all sorts of talents from all across the world, that otherwise, you would not have known of.
However, if you don’t select your team properly and don’t maintain good communication the whole development process can become quite hectic.