Top 5 Pitfalls Software Development Outsourcing Involves
Software development outsourcing has already proved to be beneficial through its cost-efficiency and other strong suites. However, you should be aware of some risks it involves and know how to avoid them. In this post, we analyzed five outsourcing challenges, which, in general, can be grouped as:
- Quality risks (lazy debug, poor code and architecture),
- Communication risks (language barrier, time zone difference, poor communication).
- Lazy debug
Unfortunately, outsourcing your software development doesn’t guarantee you get a completely bug-free solution the first time. In many cases, this is not a big problem if there are a few such issues only. After all, you can always send a bug-fixing request to your vendor.
However, sometimes the number of bugs found in the deliverable is beyond the margin. Moreover, two-thirds of these bugs must be found and fixed during life tests. But if vendor’s developers are too lazy to run these tests, your developers have to spend their time to point out what and where to fix. This is very annoying for its time-wasting, project-delay nature. After all, time is money. The money you have to pay your developers, the money you lose because of project delays, etc.
How to avoid this pitfall
There are two ways to mitigate this outsourcing risk. First, define bug request metrics and integrate them into your system of key performance indicators. Second, try the team with a pilot project to learn their testing approach.
2. Poor code and architecture
Poor code stands for code that is inconsistent and hard to maintain. Its main challenge is a long learning curve for subsequent developers. Poor architecture makes it hard to evolve and upgrade. In other words, in the future, you may encounter great problems with finding the developers who agree to take over your project.
How to avoid this pitfall
Definitely, this sort of outsourcing challenges is not to reveal at the early beginning of the project but at its end. Therefore, entrusting a small pilot project first may be a good way to avoid big problems with your large project. Thus, you will get a complete picture of a coding practice the potential vendor takes in reality.
3. Language barrier
The language barrier is the first communication risk that lowers your chances to get what you need when outsourcing your software development project. To clarify, productive communication is impossible unless both parts speak the same language.
On the one hand, sometimes, it takes a great effort to get your ideas understood exactly as it should be. On the other hand, it may also take an effort to get detailed explanations of proposed solutions and clear requests for extra information your outsourcing developers need. Unfortunately, if they are not fluent speakers, these difficulties of effective collaboration double and even triple. Being not able to understand you they are not able to deliver quality results either.
How to avoid this pitfall
The only way to avoid challenges a language barrier poses is to hire developers who are fluent in your language. Unless you are fluent in their language, of course.
To clarify, you don’t need all the team to be great at English, for example. But their scrum master must be great as he is a person who coordinates the project and runs all the communications with you and your developers. So, make sure at least your assigned scrum master has language skills at a level that is appropriate for efficient communication.
4. Time zone difference
No doubt, time zone difference is a nice thing in terms “you are sleeping, your vendor is working”. However, its flip side is you are working while your vendor is sleeping. And that can be a big problem in an emergency when time is of high significance.
For example, imagine you are engaged in e-commerce and the service you have outsourced for further upgrade goes down due to a large customer influx. The vendor is located in a time zone of 12-hour difference and unavailable for you during your whole working day. Thus, you can’t reach your vendor to fix bugs immediately and suffer great losses. Yes, time is money, and time zone difference may work against your success.
How to avoid this pitfall
If your vendor’s working hours differ significantly from that of yours, discuss his availability guarantees. Ask for emergency contacts of a person who is assigned to oversee the project. The best way to hedge yourself from the challenges time zone difference may pose on your business is to arrange an availability clause in your agreement. This way you get their complete commitment to your project and an opportunity to reach them all day round if something goes wrong.
5. Poor communication
Typically, poor communication means incoherent communication when you can’t discuss issues that arise during the software development process and track your project progression. This outsourcing challenge may hinder efficient collaboration and increase development time. Moreover, it may end with you having poor control over your project.
In general, this risk is a result of an undefined communication plan and complete uncertainty regarding meetings time and their frequency. To clarify, this is when your vendor is not able to contact you to discuss the solution or important project details. And this is when you are not able to contact them with your new tasks, requests, alterations, etc.
How to avoid this pitfall
Plan ahead. At the early beginning of your project pipeline, you need to define a communication plan. It should include a schedule for, at least, such activities as:
- Sprint planning meetings,
- Review meetings.
This way you set your communication rules and get a tool to analyze communication-related vulnerabilities of your project pipeline.
Yes, when outsourcing your software development, you still need to be proactive. So, do your due diligence to estimate associated risks and plan in advance to mitigate them.
