Tips on Managing Offshore Teams Effectively

Your company is accountable to take care of all activities from overseeing recruitment, resource management, development process or infrastructure issues, or setting up a new office. Everything is efficiently managed by your tech company. Amidst all this, what they can’t manage is the team located offshore. So, in this blog, we decided to throw some light on tips for managing offshore teams.

1. Challenges in Collaboration

Usually, when there is offshore outsourcing, businesses come across several issues that might arise during such collaboration, such as inadequate communication with the offshore software development companies and data protection. You will be able to solve all of these problems if you know what you want. Here are some of the common collaboration challenges faced by businesses.

1.1 Lack of Communication

Many businesses are concerned about the language barrier, culture,  and communication issues. There will be time zone differences if you and your offshore team are on separate continents. Poor communication can cause project failure, delays as well as misunderstandings of goals and needs.

Solution
Technology has advanced so much that there are apps like Slack, Gmail, or skype that allow businesses to effortlessly communicate with each other in a cost-effective way. 

1.2 Inappropriate Resource Management

Managing resources, infrastructure, hiring them, training them, payroll- managing everything is not easy. Businesses on their own cannot manage all tasks and that’s the reason they turn towards someone who can manage this task for them and who is trustworthy.

Solution

Hiring an offshore team is the one-shot solution for this.

1.3 Data Security

When working with offshore teams, face-to-face communication is not possible, this leads to difficulty. As a result, you may believe that your data, such as a project concept or company needs, is vulnerable to theft.

 Solution
Sign an NDA with your software vendor. This contact discusses development issues such as data gathering, transmission, and access, among others.

After discussing a few challenges it’s now time to see how to manage offshore teams which are located at distant locations. 

2. 6 Tips for Managing Offshore Teams

Your offshore team is not a one-time project development team. You might need to add some value to your offshore software development team which is committed to the long term. This implies that just giving tasks to them without providing context and expecting them to complete them is not the best strategy.

2.1 Discuss Goals with Offshore Teams

Once you hire a dedicated offshore team, it is very important for your business to communicate the requirements with the team. At the very beginning of the project,  your offshore team should know what they are developing. So, the first step in the process of software development is to inform the offshore staff about the goals. This is done so that everyone should be on the same page.

Your offshore team must be able to view the larger picture. This process will allow them to invest enough time into the vision for the product/service. Now they would understand what you hope to achieve with it, and where you envision your firm in the next five or ten years. That is why it is critical to discuss your company’s long-term goals with your offshore partner and ensure that it is in sync with you and your project manager.

2.2 RoadMap of Product

One of the most misleading points is this where the clear road map is not transparent and communication is weak with the remote teams. They tend to just do what they are advised to do. The product roadmap is a step-by-step development strategy for a quality project. Each team member must know what is your plan, the development process, offshore models, and how team members can contribute to the process. Basically, they must know what offshore software development is.

If you have a question about what the roadmap should contain then it is quite simple. The blueprint of the project development plan contains upcoming features, and technological quirks, and depicts how the product will grow in the future. The product plan is ideal for getting funding. Though this process involves offshore developers in the project, their contribution is significant. There are communication tools that will help companies have an upper hand and transform their ideas into features and technology into a business language that investors understand. These tools also help them in project management.

Communicating the roadmap with the offshore employees is very important, it will help them bring multiple perspectives to the table, and with the best idea, the app development can take place.

2.3 Clear Communication With the Development Team

Communication is the key aspect of the offshore team management process. Technology innovation has reached its perks and businesses no longer have to worry about how they will manage offshore team members located on a completely different continent. There are various tools to manage communication nowadays. In fact, these tools ensure end-to-end encryption and data protection which would keep the data safe.

The management of offshore development teams necessitates meticulous and regular communication. There are several tools or apps for increasing team communication, including

• Slack
• Gmail
• Outlook
• Skype
• Google Hangouts – a video conferencing service provided by Google.

2.4 Overlapping Work Schedules

One of the most common problems of working with offshore development teams is time zones. When your in-house team and your offshore team have gaps in work schedule, it always works in your favor. However, businesses have this misconception that they become laggards in the world and that their work schedule will affect them.

In fact, communication is easy and you get an added advantage of working 24*7 for your business. You may also discover that you only need to speak with your staff early in the morning or late at night. You don’t have to change your work schedules due to different time zones. You can work as you want and your offshore development team will work as they want. In reality, these are just disbeliefs and there is no interference or cultural differences, these are just myths that obstruct businesses from outsourcing.

2.5 Regular Meetings With Offshore Development Team

You can do a lot when it comes to taking meetings. This is not at all an excuse to not outsource your services to a remote team working at an offshore location. Usually, time zones are a reason companies think they should not outsource. But when there is an advantage of working 24*7, these time differences become a far-fetched reason to not outsource.

There are a few practices that we follow at TatvaSoft and could be essential for your business as well so take down the insights

You can start with daily stand-up calls or video calls which are short like 10-15-minute sessions. This is to understand what is in the plan for the day and further towards the end how much you can achieve. You can hold these meetings every day during which the remote workers discuss their daily duties.

Weekly meetings – With all the core members of the team like in-house developers, project managers, team leaders, and agile team members working in different time zones. They can discuss and communicate the previous week’s performance and set work for the next week; team members propose changes.

Monthly syncs — In this meeting, you can include employees from both offshore and onshore teams of the company. This will summarize the achievements from the previous month, arrange future tasks, and discuss the client.

2.6 Refrain from Micromanaging

Every business likes the freedom to work and dislikes being micromanaged. It is also difficult to grow your development staff if you cannot empower and trust them to accomplish the necessary job. It is critical that your offshore team has a competent senior developer who can function as a team lead. Offshore team management becomes healthier and more effective if there is enough liberty given to work.

Consider whether your offshore team staff lacks senior-level leadership if you’re having trouble getting things done effectively. Many businesses make the mistake of just trying to employ a slew of low-cost remote developers. In such cases, what you can do is keep your project manager as a reporting manager for the tasks which will provide you timely reports and things will be under your control.

It is in both your and your offshore partner’s best interests to guarantee that your offshore workforce is self-sufficient and successful. You must always check and see if you have the balance of offshore developers and project managers for quality software projects.

3. Final Takedowns

For all the companies looking for offshore outsourcing, there are no obstructions because this will just bring profitability for your business and improve your performance. Your offshore teams are a boon and businesses will get all the benefits of it. We hope this blog on managing offshore resources brought a sense of relief for your business teams to develop apps with the help of the right offshore team. We understand how crucial and difficult managing an offshore development team can be. But our experts can help you with unique solutions and the latest engagement models of various organizations and their workforces.