The creation of a cloud of terror, insecurity and bewilderment by COVID-19 surprised corporations and changed how they function around the world. Workers were compelled to work from home, which for the majority of people was something new. The unexpected break from their staff produced an uncomfortable situation.
A remote development team must either duplicate or compensate for the capabilities of a collocated team. Remote development teams must communicate and cooperate more efficiently than an office-bound team in normal conditions to succeed during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Remote development teams are an asset for companies that are willing to recruit the top personnel at minimum costs. Before choosing the offshore path to locate experienced developers, organisations must consider numerous aspects; in most situations, the decision is based on the geography, language or time difference. Some firms may be looking for specialist skills in the remote development team, while some require a comprehensive product development team. It is prudent in both circumstances, in every respect and with a team for offshore development, to adopt specific best practices.
What is remote workforce management?
The technique of efficiently leading and managing remote personnel is known as remote workforce management. This usually entails a combination of communication, technology, and processes tailored to manage an effective remote workforce. Companies that are more committed to successful remote workforce management frequently provide in-depth training for both managers and employees on important remote work issues.
Challenges of Hiring Remote Development Team
When you hire an offshore development team, managing them will become a most difficult task. You have to evaluate a lot of factors in advance.
Let’s just look at them all.
Communication – English is not the primary language in the majority of nations that host offshore development teams. The language barrier could be an issue, particularly for tasks that require frequent contact and a high degree of detail.
Time difference – Working with an overseas contractor when there is a large time zone difference could make it tough for email communications and practically impossible for phone communications. If you have regular, continuous communication between onshore and offshore team members in the development environment, it is recommended to work with an offshore team based within the US time zone.
Diversity of business practice – Because of the country’s business culture developers at an offshore development centre could take a completely different perspective on typical business operations. This could lead to divergent assumptions about managing a project that can cause confusion and frustration.
High turnover rates – The IT sector is well recognised for its turnover rate of up to 50% in many nations who host offshore development teams. The loss of knowledge and skills in projects results in high turnover rates. This can affect the efficiency, speed and quality of the project.
Managing Complex Tasks – Remote employment involves a number of activities, especially in the IT business; some are easy and some are quite difficult. Whilst it is simple to handle work without having your team in the office, it’s a problem to manage complex tasks. Even if you use the best video conferencing technologies and software, it could be ineffective to think about a project. Furthermore, some complex projects have different task tiers and variable deadlines to confound your remote crew.
Tips to manage a remote team
Managing an offshore development team is important to the success of your company. However, for our businesses to thrive, we as entrepreneurs must continually go the extra mile. When we commit offshore, we must also plan for the obstacles that it will bring. Following are the Tips to manage a remote team by overcoming all the challenges.
Outline and measure deliverables
Communicate the key success metrics to each remote developer and ensure that they understand what you expect of them. Also, don’t forget to write everything down. Then, do one-to-one sync-ups (at least once a week) to ensure that everyone is on the same page.
Establish processes and procedures
Everybody may be in their own universe in a remote team. Remote developers tend to establish their own methods and practises that are not necessarily consistent with other members of the team. Set up a defined, consistent workflow, eg an approval chain, schedules for various activities, etc. Make sure everybody follows and if required, add adjustments. You will find that your remote developers are happy to follow a well defined construction, testing and documentation procedure.
Offer various communications tools
Another recommended practice for managing remote teams is to ensure that the team has a variety of contact alternatives. This might include video chats, phone calls, instant messaging, email, and other methods.
Video conferencing has tremendous advantages, and it may be the ideal way of communication for team meetings. However, if a team member has a non-urgent inquiry, you are unlikely to want them to video call you. Provide a variety of alternatives and attempt to determine which style of communication is best for particular scenarios.
Tracking Tasks
It is also necessary to follow up on the responsibilities of team members in order to know where the project is going. Create adequate task tracking methods. It is not correct to continuously contact the team on conversations and videos and to analyse their work case by case. If you need to know the progress of your project, you should work on an automated procedure. You must develop a monitoring procedure or utilise a tracking technology based on your needs in order to obtain real-time status of the tasks.
Encourage your remote teams to be more open and transparent
We need to establish trust in our remote colleagues via mutual understanding and respect. Encourage transparency by organising weekly remote lunches and virtual coffee breaks. Discuss daily life, develop empathy, make connections, and be explicit about your objectives and reasoning.
Conclusion
Overall, implementing an offshore workforce has shown to be a cost-effective and efficient way for businesses to complete their objectives. Many companies use offshore developers to bridge the gaps in expertise, increase their capacity and sell their products faster. Companies can spend more time and attention on innovation and free up their staff for other activities by actively monitoring databases remotely, regardless of location.
When you hire an offshore development team they can be just as productive as co-located teams, if not more so. Agile collaboration with offshore teams can help you achieve this high degree of efficiency. Regardless of geographic location, there are several opportunities to employ the best agile techniques in order to achieve high performance and establish trusting relationships with offshore development teams. You can start with best practices, as indicated in this piece. Of course, new remote management mechanisms are needed for customised applications.