Building an effective collaboration with your software development remote team

When hiring a remote team to handle your software development needs, there are a few things you need to take into consideration regarding the whole operational side of things. There are several advantages to this practice, but also a few disadvantages that require a closer analysis from your side before making a firm decision.

One of the biggest disadvantages is the physical location of your augmented team. They are most probably located in another country and travel isn’t always possible. So you need to figure out what means of communication are best for your business and how can you leverage best the available online resources that make possible such collaborations.

But let’s see why it is such a good idea to think about choosing a remote team, especially in uncertain times, such as these. The COVID-19 pandemic literally turned the world upside down and with it, a fair amount of businesses found it really difficult to adapt to current conditions and ceased to function altogether. Some saw in all this an opportunity and rode the wave to success.

This is the exact same case with remote teams. They are growing in every industry and may become the norm in the future for global companies who can master the management and communication tools needed to work with such a team. The advantages are endless. They can be located anywhere, provided they have a strong internet connection and the appropriate equipment. The remote team can easily continue their projects even in cases of global uncertainties, much like the ones we live now.

It all sounds like a dream come true, but how can we establish an effective collaboration with a nearshored team and how can we make sure that this is the right decision for our businesses?

Having this in mind, we’ve discussed below some of the most important aspects anyone needs to consider before hiring a remote team.

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Effective communication

It is a well-known fact that efficient and effective communication is the foundation of every successful relationship be that personal or professional. To build a successful team who can deliver a high-quality product you need to keep that conversation going, from the very start.

Although the physical distance may complicate things in this department, there are a lot of digital tools that can facilitate constant communication between you and the remote team. How does that look like on a regular day, you ask? Quite simple, here’s how:

• Choose the preferred tools. Though emails are still a popular choice for sharing important pieces of information, they fail to establish that human contact that every type of relationship needs. Easy to chat tools like Skype, Slack or Hangouts, can help you with just that.
• Keep it simple. We have a tendency to over-complicate many messages, in the form of long and confusing emails mostly. But they don’t work in getting that message through. So it’s best to have a quick call, sometimes direct communication is the solver of any type of miscommunication.
• Encourage informal conversations. Despite that professional mask we put on each morning when starting work, we’re still humans in need of social connections. So, besides getting updates on the status of the projects, let’s start each conference call by asking some personal questions too. It will relax the atmosphere and your team will be more engaged with their work.

These are just some simple ideas for getting that conversation started and maximizing every bit of it. Now more than ever, in these current uncertain times, we need to connect more and more with each other. The social isolation due to the COVID-19 pandemic is affecting even the best of us. It is of great advantage that a software development remote team can continue working on projects from their homes like before, but now more than ever communication is vital in order to keep our minds afloat.

We now know about the importance of constant communication and how it impacts work, but what are the best ways to collaborate with a nearshore software team?

Making good use of technology

There’s no better time like today to make good use of those friendly applications and pieces of software that help thousands of teams stay organized and accountable for their work. Project management is indeed a critical aspect of every leadership and you need to make sure that you’re choosing the right technological tools for your teams’ needs.

Tools like Trello, Azure DevOps, Jira or Confluence can do wonders for tracking progress and managing the overall outcome of a certain project. Using these types of tools ensures a well-distributed communication process across the team. This way, everyone knows what their role is and can openly collaborate with teammates to ensure the best outcome possible for the project at hand.

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Technology’s main mission is to aid and facilitate all of these work processes and beyond. The secret is in finding and adopting the best tools available that ease your teams’ work and communication efforts.

Good communication and user-friendly tools alone aren’t always enough to build that desired relationship with your remote team. Sometimes we need to dig a little bit deeper and trust that everyone is doing their very best and make sure all our expectations are accounted for.

Managing expectations

Set yourself and your team up for success by clearly stating the path that needs to be followed and the reasons behind these choices. This method will not only increase the overall success of the project, but it will also help your team understand better the process and what’s at stake.

By defining the goals, deadlines and deliverables for each ongoing project you can only focus on the outcomes, leaving the actual activity to the specialists. It can be one of the most difficult things to consider during this journey, but it is an essential step that shouldn’t be overlooked.

Collaborating with a remote team shouldn’t be daunting. Like any other human relationship, it needs work and understanding in order to function properly. People need to feel appreciated and valued, and there are a few tips that can increase this feeling among them.

The three Rs: Reward, Recognition, Respect

Everyone needs to feel that their work is meaningful and leads to something more. This is one of the biggest motivators for anyone to receive. To complete the “motivational circle” a team member needs to receive reward, recognition and respect from his or her peers, superiors and subordinates.

There are some ways to motivate and encourage your remote team. A simple email or phone call thanking them for going above and beyond is a simple, yet fast and effective way to show that you recognize and appreciate all the hard work they’ve done.

Treating them with respect is a must. Just because the team is outsourced doesn’t mean that they do not deserve to be treated like any other employee. And it is always important to keep in mind that without their value and hard work, your company’s success wouldn’t be possible.

There are a lot of teams out there that are ready to jump in and build something great with you. From our experience, it is always better to choose the ones that are a good match of different areas, such as work values, language, skill set, location and so on.

Agile environment

The Agile approach gives software teams the ability to implement a clear framework that promotes team collaboration with a strong focus on quality and efficiency. This practice replaced those long, complicated and expensive development cycles. Instead of working for months for product development or update, an agile team can run through the development cycle in a matter of days/weeks.

Agile development is a better choice, especially for remote teams. The people on the team are more productive and engaged in working with this process. The main reason is that they receive reward, recognition and feedback for their work faster and constantly.

Qubiz has a preference for using Agile in its development project for these exact same reasons — faster and a more hands-on approach to the whole development process. Not to mention the fact that the client can see the evolution of the project much faster, sprint after sprint.

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Hello, we’re Qubiz!

We are a company that is 100% focused on people — both employees and clients. We’ve been in business for enough time to understand that putting people first is the thing that matters most in order to succeed in any undertaking. Our values are at the core of this culture: Client Centricity, Excellence, Teamwork, Trust and Respect, Fun and Entrepreneurship.

We consistently measure ourselves by these values. By breaking them down into concrete behaviours, we are able to create a roadmap for each employee and, using 360° feedback, they know what are their strengths and where to focus on growth in the future. We believe that having a good cultural match with our clients is the single most important thing that can ensure a high-value collaboration towards reaching business objectives.

Qubiz has been the technological partner of choice for many Western European companies in countries such as The Netherlands, The UK and the DACH region. We’ve worked with both big and small companies from different industries and managed to successfully deliver cutting edge IT solutions for businesses that are on an ascending path towards innovation.

Qubiz can act as a one-stop-shop, by providing services that cover the whole application lifecycle, including functional design and consulting, software architecture design, UX/UI design, software development, QA, and finally maintenance.

Need more information? We’ve got you covered! Just take a look at this guide we’ve put together to help you choose the right course of action for your nearshoring needs.