Nothing’s certain in business except change. That’s why IT decision-makers love agile software development. It makes development flexible enough to respond to change, no matter how fast it happens.
The principles and indeed key values of agile software development are rooted in flexibility and team interaction. That is, the development process should be flexible enough to incorporate new goals and objectives, which often may require new ideas and approaches by the people doing the work and how they do it. The impetus for change may come from a number of sources.
For example, the desired capabilities and functionality of the program may evolve or usability requirements may need to be revised. Irrespective of the source, incorporating changes should be built-in to the development process and not an interruption of it. And partnering with a developer that understands this philosophy will help your team make smarter, faster decisions that will ultimately result in a higher quality software product.
If your team already uses agile methodology, you’re going to need an outsourcing partner that understands this mindset. Because agile software development is a way of thinking about how to solve problems, not a series of set-in-stone processes. You’ll need an agile software development outsourcing partner who understands your team’s unique interpretation of the method’s twelve principles.
Does Your Agile Software Development Outsourcing Partner Share Your Vision?
There are many benefits to outsourcing software development, including the following.
- Flexibility
- Focused strategy
- Reduced time to market
- Talented IT
- Better precision
In order to maximally leverage these for a more efficient development process; however, your development partner must also be able to adapt quickly to your team’s philosophy.
The best agile software development partner has a background in which adaptability is at a premium. Additionally, your partner should be able to hit the ground running and any necessary training should follow a sharp learning curve. Therefore, there will be no drop-off or any delay in the production cycle.
It takes experience and expertise to step into an ongoing software development project without any hiccups. Not to mention, the ability to integrate with a new team and workflow. The best outsourcing partner can successfully overcome this challenge by applying a design-oriented mindset and ability to work across methodologies. Thus, the ideal outsourcing partner is experienced in a variety of software development methodologies, and their software engineers can be flexible in their approach, should the need arise.
Can Your Software Outsourcing Partner Follow These Five Important Design Stages?
Agile software outsourcing partners who follow the five stages of design laid out by the Stanford Design School have proven to be especially effective. Moving through these five stages is a process that gives software engineers a means of adapting to your team’s way of working. Following them keeps engineers motivated, engaged, and focused on making the biggest contribution to your team possible.
The five stages of software design thinking are:
- Empathize: Software engineers from a quality outsourcing partner will start by empathizing with your pain points and with your team. They should observe end-users and learn about the context in which their use occurs. They should engage you and your team, asking “why” questions that lead to the deepest insights. And they should track everything the team does around them, paying attention to even the smallest details.
- Define: Next, engineers should be able to define the end-users’ needs and problems by compiling the information gathered during the previous stage. By identifying patterns, classifying needs, and synthesizing insights, end-users’ pain points will become clear.
- Ideate: The third stage of design thinking is to generate new ideas. It’s a creative stage that uses techniques such as brainstorming, mind mapping, or storyboards to question assumptions and find innovative solutions alongside a long-term team.
- Prototype: This experimental stage tests the ideas created in the previous stage by trying them. It involves building scaled-down versions of the product to start creating a solution. Quality software engineers will keep the end-user in mind during this stage by envisioning what the user experience of the product will be like.
- Test: The final stage is to give prototyped solutions a try. By giving them to end users to test, software engineers can get feedback on what refinements to make. Because design thinking is an iterative process, previous steps may be repeated from any point until a complete solution that meets all requirements is delivered.
Although the above stages are critical for optimal software development outsourcing, software outsourcing methodologies aren’t the only considerations to take into account when determining whether to hire a software developer.
Your partner should be able to provide staff within 72 hours if you’re going to get the level of flexibility you truly need. They should be able to provide staff augmentation for a range of outsourcing software development services, even if you need many staff members. And it goes without saying that your nearshore software development partner should only staff the top tech talent in their region.
Choose an Outsourcing Partner That Can Adapt to Your Methodology Fast
It doesn’t matter if you use an agile methodology or any other kind out there. The bottom line is that you need an outsourcing partner that offers talented developers who will understand your way of working.
A developer’s qualifications, education, or work history are important. But if they can’t follow your team’s established methodologies or pivot quickly whenever needed, they’re going to waste your time and cost you money.
Whether your team uses Agile or any other methodology, BairesDev offers software engineering talent that can adjust to your preferred way of working, fast. We hire the Top 1% tech Talent in Latin America, meaning that your nearshore-sourced project or team member will always be close to home. To learn more, contact our team.
