Importance of Agile Approach when Outsourcing Software Development

software development when outsourcing

In a competitive landscape, where prudence pays, outsourcing has now become the second most popular trend in software development.

However, just offsetting development responsibilities is not enough to develop a strong team or to ship out a great product.

Combining the agile approach with outsourced software development helps the team to manage the project better and it creates a flexible communication channel between the outsourcing vendor and the customer.

There might be a question here though. Is it possible to stay agile while outsourcing software development? With different teams, different forms of resources, a possible timezone disconnect and chances of miscommunication – would it be even possible to keep the development process agile?

And if you cannot incorporate agile while outsourcing, would it even be possible to survive in the Digital Darwinian world.

“The research shows that in 2020, only 18% of the organizations
have adopted agile practices within their organization, and
confirmed that it offers great adaptability.”

Many IT companies are now leveraging the agile approach while choosing offshore software development for flexible results. #AgileSoftware #Outsourcing #OffshoreSoftwareDevelopment Click To Tweet

Why Do Businesses Prefer Working with an Agile Software Development Company?

Software development is about change. Iterations, Features, Customer Satisfaction, UX and Optimizations. For these notions to take effect, developers often need to deal with continuous changes in requirements or work on some competitive updates to ensure their product success.

However, meeting such goals needs developers to stick with a methodology that runs beyond the scope of the traditional waterfall approach, has smoother iterations and shifts and offers better product control. This is where Agile Software Development comes in.

Using agile methodology in development allows quicker iterations, feature additions and code-to-product cycle. That is why most people looking for outsourcing prefer to work with an Agile Software Development Company.

Here are a few advantages of Agile Software Development –

1. Interaction and the flexible approach – These are the basic principles on which agile methodology works. It gives space for enrolling any new objectives or ideas that can improve the scope of work.
Superior Product Quality – More iterations, Feature additions, and a Faster Time to Market makes sure that the product is constantly evolving.

2. Better Control of Product – Having an agile approach built-in into the process could help in improving decisions and ensure higher quality products. This also offers the stakeholders a better perspective of things and help them shape the product/software in ways more useful to the audience

3. Customer Satisfaction – The Audience. Customer stays in the loop consistently, offers feedback, and hence ensures a unique value proposition

4. Iterative Vision and Receptibility towards market/Industry changes

5. Relevant Metrics – With Agile Development, the estimation of time and cost, the project performance and resources needed are more accurate and relevant than the ones used in traditional methodologies.

Now to combine Agile with Outsourcing –

How to Combine Outsourcing Software Development with Agile Process

There are many ways to bring success to anyone trying to combine Agile and Outsourcing in software development.

And once again – the reason is to raise the performance benchmark of the development team – not just call yourself agile and use project management boards.

Here are some of the ways to get the win:

Finding A Reliable Partner: With the growing demand for agile IT outsourcing companies, it’s important to find a reliable partner who knows how agile methods work. Before finalizing them, make sure they have sufficient experience in this industry with some certification and maintain the company’s culture.

How does that help? – Helps you Tackle Ineffective Collaboration and run-of-the-mill solutions by sub-par vendors

Proactive Communication: To avoid communication barriers with third-party service providers, ensure your communication channels are always open and active. Email, video conferencing, chat, web conferencing, and face-to-face meetings are the modes of communication. And by using tools like JIRA, MicrosoftTeam, and Zoho, you can use the ways of communication.

How does that help? – Fosters better planning and helps set milestones and goals for development.

Focus on the team: Focusing on the team rather than the individual helps build a network that stays agile. If the team fails to meet the project requirements, the agile approach will fall apart. Therefore, evaluate your team to see how quickly they fit into the framework before signing a contract with a third-party service provider.

How does that help? – Focused teamwork brings Agile to Practical effect. Employing a Unit is better than hunting for solo rockstars!

Flexible Support: The agile outsourcing team places more emphasis on flexibility in many ways. They know very well that processes and requirements can change as the project progresses. Through iterative planning, agile software development teams can customize their software products based on current business needs.

How does that help? – Agile allows variation. Make sure that your vendor is onboard with that concept – in meetings, in pitch & planning, and on paper.

MicrosoftTeams-image

Benefits of Agile Software Development

If your team is already working on agile software development practices and needs assistance from an outsourcing partner, make sure you both have a common mindset. It will allow better interpretation of the objectives and have the benefit of:

  • More flexible development
  • More focused results
  • Less time to market with better teams
  • Better access to IT resources
  • Precise and adaptable end products

However, suppose you are a software development firm that needs to leverage more of these benefits and ensure greater efficiency. In that case, it becomes vital to adapt an agile offshore partner that aligns with the team’s philosophy.

Moreover, when you have support from an Agile Software Development Company, it gives you premium adaptability and control on projects with an improved learning curve. And guess what, you can always have the advantage to prevent drop-off and delays when you need to ensure timely deliverables.

Design Thinking with an Agile Methodology

Since it needs all the experience and expertise to work on software development goals, achieving workflow goals requires your in-house teams to integrate well with an outsourcing partner.

Moreover, it needs your Agile Software Development Company to meet these five stages of agile design thinking for motivated, engaged, and focused results:

  • Empathize, i.e., understanding the pain points of the in-house team and align with them to deliver on the most profound insights
  • Define, i.e., to define the problem areas of the end-users and work on creating patterns that can meet the product requirements while overcoming pain points.
  • Ideate, i.e., to think of new ideas that can help give a creative edge to the products with effective brainstorming, assumptions, and innovative outcomes.
  • Prototyping, i.e., building scaled-down versions of the end product and ensuring quality user experience.
  • Testing, i.e., to try the prototype product while working on any refinements that can be made during the iterative process to achieve a perfect solution.

Though the above design thinking stages are critical when seeking outsourcing solutions in software development, working with an agile software outsourcing company can help you ensure optimal results during deliveries.

However, you must only work with an outsourcing partner that can help you realize the requirements and challenges of the project.

And when you approach some offshore software development vendor, the talent availability must be a precursor for the service provider.

Conclusion

All in all, when you are looking for an outsourcing partner, they must adapt to your methodology. Whether it is an agile methodology or some other practice, the bottom line is that the outsourcing partner should offer you talented experts that understand your business values, methods, and work style.

Summary

Name
Importance of Agile Approach when Outsourcing Software Development
Author
Anup Mehrotra
Published on
April 5, 2021

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