10 questions to ask before hiring a development team

You want to develop a new project, and of course, you need a development team. So where do you start with that and how to work with an outsource team? We’ve collected 10 must-have questions to ask yourself and a potential development team before starting a development process.

5 questions to ask your internal team before hiring a software development team

1. How Does This Project Fit My Business Strategy?

First of all, outsource company should understand your business, and you have to be prepared for that. A team will ask you about business and revenue models, how application affects your business, who is your target audience and how users will use your software.

During the interview, the development team would want to know every detail, including how will the project fit your business model. Qualified outsourcing team will always dig into your business strategy to help you achieve great results.

You should be prepared beforehand. Ask yourself what your goals for this project are and how it will help or transform your business or maybe make a user experience of your customers better. Then share this result with a software development team. This information will help your development partner make the right decisions in the future, whether on the software architecture or design. Moreover, developers might have done a similar project before and can share some insights with you.

2. What’s the Budget of the Project?

When customers contact a development vendor to discuss a project development, they are usually surprised by the question “What is your budget?”. Whether it’s uncomfortable for them to speak about money or they just don’t know. When a development team knows your budget, they can suggest you best solution according to it, or just refuse you and nobody will waste time.

To avoid these issues, sit down and ask yourself how much are you willing to spend on the project. Don’t forget to consider additional long-term maintenance costs.

3. What’s Our Plan for Long-Term Application Maintenance?

Mostly, companies don’t plan long-term maintenance of their software project, though it’s important. Long-term support keeps the project up-to-date, secure, and helps to fix bugs on the go.
While starting your work with a development team, tell them about your long-term plans and overall duration of the partnership.

4. What Timelines Do I Need to Hit?

Your development partner has to understand your deadlines to make your workflow smooth and not to fail you.

To make so, ask yourself if you have any upcoming events where you’ll make a product announcement or going to show the demo of the project. It will help the development team stay organized, estimate resource capabilities, workloads, and deadlines in advance.

5. Who Needs to be Involved and How Will They Participate?

Projects with a fewer number of stakeholders move quicker than those with a lot of members, because of decision making and approval time. So try to involve only necessary people on your side.

Assign one or two people within the in-house team that will communicate with a development team. These team players will be decision makers on a daily basis to approve work or suggestions from the development team(usually their project manager). Such a move will speed up everyday iterations and the overall process of development.

Additionally, discuss with your software development vendor weekly or monthly presentations to keep your top-level stakeholders up-to-date.

5 questions to ask an outsource software development team before starting the project

1. Do you have experience with similar projects?

Most of IT companies work in different sectors of business from e-commerce to health care. Nevertheless, it’s important that your development partner has already worked with a similar project because if not, it’s possible they don’t know about some underwater rocks.

That’s why it’s a good idea to ask a development team about their previous experience. For example, if developers have mostly worked with e-commerce and you are a big enterprise, there could be issues.

Nevertheless, though it’s risky, a team of true professionals can adapt to your business model and create a successful project without previous experience in a particular niche.

2. Can I see your portfolio, references, or client testimonials?

References and testimonials will tell you about how the team you want to hire has performed in the past. In addition, you can see the quality and types of projects they have developed.

If the company is not willing to show you their portfolio and share their past clients’ experience, consider it a bad sign, a reliable development team should be proud of their work.

Spend some time to do internet research of reviews and ratings of their work. Use such tools as Clutch, Trustpilot or just google them. Moreover, if possible, contact some of their past clients, their reference will be the most valuable, especially if you work in the same niche.

3. What does your workflow look like and how will we communicate?

Software development is an iterative process, this question will determine how you will stay in touch during the process and exchange feedback. Moreover, it will show you if the team is skilled enough because an experienced team knows their workflow well and can tell you how much time a project will take and what unexpected issues can happen.

Take into consideration that the project manager of software development vendor should give you access to project-management or collaboration tools like Trello or Jira that help you see the development process more transparent.

4. Do you understand my business model?

When the development team understands your business model and your target audience they can build the product, your customers will love. And in the opposite, if your external team doesn’t ask questions about your business, there is a risk your project will fail.

That’s why you should choose IT company that not just provide development services, but have a business approach and can understand what do you and your customers really need. For that task, solid companies provide business analyst or project manager with that skill.

5. What will the formal side of our collaboration look like?

Ensure that the contract signed between you and the software development company is clear and the terms are fair. As well, look if you will receive the full copyright of the code after the project is finished.

It’s better to spend more time researching a reliable development team that will bring you success than make a mistake in a rush and waste time and money.

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