7 Steps to Successful Outsourcing

Through trial and error we have identified a seven step process to creating amazing outsourced development teams. Our business objective is to guide you efficiently through these seven steps to maximize your investment:

#1: Find the Best Talent Possible

There are lots of people throughout the world who claim to program but in actuality have a very limited skillset. Maybe you have had the displeasure of working with them on a freelance website in the past.

To truly find the best talent you must go through hundreds or even thousands of resumes. Then you must interview the top candidates to select the final handful who enter the next stage. sourceBOLD does this leg work for you!

#2: Real-World Test the Final Candidates

Administering a real-world, hands-on test where the programmer actually builds a working tool is the best way to evaluate the final candidates when outsourcing.

sourceBOLD administers this test for you and offers you the ability to review the developer’s test on request.

#3: Break Down Project Milestones into Trackable Tasks

To successfully outsource you must break down the larger project milestones into trackable tasks. This is best done with a project management management and collaboration tool. This allows you to see the burndown rate of your project to know if it’s on track for on time delivery.

#4: Regularly Manage and Communicate with the Developer

Just like employees in the US, an outsourced developer needs to have regular contact with their manager. The reason for this is two-fold. First, this allows the developer to keep the manager apprised of the status of the project. Second, it builds the developer’s trust and confidence in the manager and strengthens loyalty. Without this regular communication, projects can derail quickly.

#5: Regularly Review Code

All bestselling authors have editors who review their writing to fact check and fix errors. The same is required for a developer’s code. By regularly reviewing code, you can catch minor problems early and build a better final product.

You can do regular code reviews internally or you may bring in a neutral third party to do these code reviews for you.

#6: Set up Objective Based Bonuses with Time & Quality Metrics

Studies show that 75% of software projects finish behind schedule or never get finished at all. You don’t want your project to end up in this category. One of the best ways to help a project to finish on time is by setting up an objective based bonus with both time and quality metrics to drive your developers to do their best work.

sourceBOLD can work with you to set up motivating objective based bonuses to get your projects out the door on time.

#7: Incorporate Your Developer as a Member of Your Team

If you treat your developer as a full member of your team, they will act like one. We recommend that you include them in your weekly development or staff meetings. We also recommend that you meet with them in person one time per year, ideally by having them out to your office. The dividends we see for companies that do this are huge, as their developers have strong loyalty and are willing to go above and beyond to meet project deadlines and organizational goals.

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