Offshoring is a complex means of organizing a software development team to manage a project across borders despite cultural and geographical differences with firms in conducting the best practices, standard processes or remote services overseas to reduce operational costs.
Organizing software projects
In responding to the question of how you organize an offshore software development team, this involves both the problem and the solution. Also, this includes the best development process quality criteria.
For most cases, firms begin with a remote project or an enterprise process while ensuring a quality offshore development. The main principle is to execute a software development project that can be clearly defined in the requirements document.
A supplier on the other side of the globe is being subcontracted for a potential project. In offshore software development, this is more than seeking solutions to execute the necessary tasks. This covers quality offshore development. For any enterprise, a new software product is a means to modify the operational status quo or make a giant step in optimizing processes to ensure meeting the improved business results and the development of process quality criteria. These elements apply to write high-quality codes and delivering a reliable solution that works effectively without any bugs or flaws.
The need for quality assurance
In achieving successful software development, quality assurance (QA) assists in eliminating bugs. The QA team functions by helping the developers to deliver the software product promptly and identifying any issues or barriers that might prevent excellent software operation or negatively impact the user experience.
In general, QA aids in designing and monitoring the development process by getting rid of serious project issues. To do this, QA software development team members collaborate, including all stakeholders such as business owner, project manager, business analyst, and offshore development quality lead during the entire software development cycle. The to-do list of QA activities varies depending on the current project, scope of the work, and project tasks.
Development process quality criteria
For decades, software quality has improved significantly. Most companies have started using innovative technologies in their offshore software development quality processes like object-oriented development, CASE platforms, etc. Also, there is an increasing focus on software quality management and implementing quality management strategies. However, software development quality is different from the concept of quality used in other industries.
Promoting high quality
The key to achieving high-quality software products is the right mix of the two vital elements. First, engage the right people in your offshore software development project or business process. Instead of heavy reliance on the people recruitment skills of the vendor, it is recommended to focus on the hiring decision. Second, the main question to respond to before the actual task begins is how things will work. Before the real work begins, establishing a common process provides insights into who does what in every phase of the collaboration.
High quality is a combination of people skills and the right processes. Hiring the right people that are fit to the best position documents how the work is conducted, what is expected, and the result will be the expected quality.
Ways of securing the quality software development
To succeed in managing your offshore software development team, ensure that the team members are fully aware of their expected roles and responsibilities. Also, in delivering quality work, they should be informed of the development process quality criteria how their work will be evaluated. Below are four essential factors to remember in promoting quality in offshore software development and prevent potential operational issues.
#1 Quality management systems (QMS)
To make the business successful, there are different processes with various approaches of execution that enable software development company to attain its target profitability and meet customer satisfaction on an ongoing basis. Quality management is a vital part of the process that contributes to overall business operations. A QMS includes standard operating procedures, templates, and guidelines that are necessary for project development.
The guidelines enable all team members of the software project to be on the same page with the best understanding of the expected tasks. Also, a QMS helps companies to review potential failure modes at each stage and prevent them from occurring.
Whatever the organizational size and whether they consist of an in-house software quality team or not, QMS is a critical component for all firms that seek to deliver high-quality outcomes and excel in satisfying the customer needs.
#2 End-to-end quality planning
The conventional means of evaluating, identifying, and fixing bugs can be a very expensive endeavor and time-consuming method. You may end up wasting your precious development time. However, ensuring quality to eliminate defects or spotting them early in the process streamlines the time-to-market and provides enhanced project delivery.
At times. some small and medium business enterprises (SMEs) commit the mistake of undertaking the evaluation part of development as the last priority. Essentially, the best approach to adopt is investing in an end-to-end quality plan that involves:
- A test plan and strategy achieve high-quality software product in its entire development.
- Properly defining a team coding standard and an automated indicator to check the standards.
- Conduct peer-review within team members before committing code and ensuring the best quality.
- Adopt continuous integration and code testing to identify defects and fix them right away to minimize costly errors.
- Provide needed review and feedback at the end of every sprint with customer reps to provide the suitable features fit for their goals.
Also, this involves identifying process certifications when selecting an offshore vendor who can identify the progress of your project.
#3 Skills and expertise of the testing team
The professional background of your offshore software development team is critical in identifying development process quality criteria of your final product. Certified evaluators have a wide range of skills and expertise that are extremely advantageous to meet your project requirements. Opting for offshore development quality team with highly skilled outsourced developers promote that the team is well equipped to succeed in the development of a high-quality software app.
Also, a qualified and expert team is well-informed about the goal, targets, and constraints of the business. For short-sighted testers with the main goal to detect bugs and go home early are not needed for these types of tasks.
#4 Agile software development process
Today, the Agile methodology works on a continuous enhancement principle where the agile developers create mini, self-organizing teams while developing prototypes as quickly as possible. Then, employ customer feedback to modify things as needed.
Also, Agile provides a stronger link between the developers and testers by seeking the teams to begin collaborating at the very start of a project. This ensures that everyone is involved in achieving the goals as defined in the project targets and attaining software quality. This leads to a smoother development and testing method, including a stronger build initially.
Working with an offshore partner who does not use Agile neglects you to take advantage of having the flexibility for iterations, fast bug fixes, and achieving the business-value first approach.
Conclusion
Offshore software development can empower small enterprises to remedy bigger and more business-centric issues with less overhead cost while leveraging skilled professionals that they cannot afford. However, without proper selection where to outsource your software development project can have damaging effects on your business expectations. This can impact your project’s quality and potentially end up losing your desired customer base.
However, by selecting the right offshore software development team partner who implements the cited development process quality criteria earlier, you can be certain that in-house and remote teams can collaborate toward delivering a high-quality offshore development product.
