6 Risks To Assess When Choosing Your Software Development Partner
Thinking about your next dev partner? Here’s what to consider.
I hear a similar story from companies of all sizes with different needs and different goals. They’re in a bind because of time and budget constraints and their tech is whacked-out because an offshore dev team they hired over-promised and under-delivered. On paper, their rates are a steal and an easy way to divert those cost savings into other areas like marketing and sales. But I’ve seen all sorts of things go awry — busted codebases, dysfunctional apps, unfinished products, projects running much longer and more expensive than expected. When selecting a vendor, it’s important to understand exactly who you’re dealing with and how they operate.
Here are six risk areas that everyone should consider to ensure a whole lotta love in the vendor-client relationship.
1. Time Sucking
A time-suck is when an agency deliberately increases its billable hours to compensate for its low rates. For example, if Agency X invoices you $Y/hour at 400 hours for a project that could feasibly be completed in 100 hours, that $Y/hour functionally becomes $(4x)Y/hour charge. Additionally, a decent amount of these projects, for some reason, magically need more time to be completed during the last week of development. At this point, the customer concedes to their developer’s antics because they’re leveraged for time. Low-rates are meaningless if the agency you hired is stealing time and pointlessly extending deadlines. Always do your due diligence on an agency, and ask for a development plan before making your decision.
2. Ghosting
If your developer goes MIA for an indefinite amount of time, they’re ghosting you. Imagine it’s two weeks before your project launch date and you’ve been trying to get an update from your developer for a week, but they’ve been unresponsive, and your stakeholders are clamoring for updates. Product owners could be left dazed and confused with no control over development cycles if their developers are halfway across the world and undergo an unexpected absence. You could withhold payment as collateral, but many dev agencies require at least half the cost upfront. If your developer is not proactive in establishing clear expectations about workflow, availability, and communication, they’re probably sketchy and/or janky.
3. Data and IP leaks
This is an absolute worst-case scenario — when the levee breaks and data or IP are compromised, the fix is usually expensive and time-consuming. There was an instance of a UK-based local government body outsourcing development of an HR platform to an agency with a good reputation. The project handoff was smooth, but a year later, the system experienced fatal breaches. Sensitive data was compromised and a forensic analysis concluded that the offshore developers had built in a secret backdoor to which they likely sold access. It took millions of dollars to clean up. If the product stores or uses sensitive data, only trust a firm that is willing to perform a third-party security audit prior to handoff.
4. Compliance
Government bodies have beefed up their regulatory initiatives over tech and user data over the past decade. There are strict rules governing how and when companies can store and use data, which varies from region to region. A software development partner must understand the nuances in localized product development and deployment to avoid regulatory dead-ends. If your product is built for use in Scotland but your sales team is planning on going to California next, the differences in regulation must be considered in the development plan. I’ve taken over projects where offshore developers didn’t even build with basic data hosting requirements in mind, let alone things like PIPEDA compliance. Make sure your vendor has a thorough and nuanced understanding of compliance.
5. The Black Box
Some developers will scope out a project, take your initial payment, and begin development. Then you won’t hear from them, or you’ll hear sporadically, until the end of the project. This style of development is antiquated, makes iteration impossible, and doesn’t allow for adjustments to be made on the fly. If you’re using a ‘black box’ development agency you will save a bit of money, but you are placing too much faith in your vendor to deliver your vision. If you’re not able to provide feedback throughout the process, chances are you’ll be underwhelmed with the final product. Developers with an agile process will show you progress multiple times a week and solicit your feedback regularly.
6. Communication Breakdown
Of course, your product development efficiency increases when your development team communicates with you effectively and efficiently. There are words, phrases, and concepts that don’t fully translate across languages. And although it may seem efficient to have your developers work while you sleep, if you need to contact them while they’re off-hours, your correspondence can lag if not break down completely leaving you to ramble on to no avail. Make sure ALL members of the dev team you’re considering are able to communicate with you and are available during your working hours.
Unfortunately, I’ve seen many companies learn these expensive lessons the hard way. They say a wise person learns from the mistakes of others. If this is the case, a smart businessperson prevents mistakes before they drain their bottom line.
