Team Augmentation5 key challenges for development partners

When augmentation doesn’t go well it can cause considerable damage to relationships and businesses. In this article we’ll run through 5 key challenges for software development partners and how to help mitigate them.

A meeting of business people with a elephant at the corner of the room

Key concerns

Here are the key ones to look out for and how we help prevent them from becoming a thing.

Offshore

One of the main challenges with augmentation comes from using development teams in other countries. This could be as a result of cultural differences or simply the distance and time gap. We are entirely UK based and you can be confident that your cultural references and requirements will be well understood. We will also be working at the same time as you.

Quality

It can be easy to assume your prospective development partner has the same standards as you when it comes to quality. This is not always the case; we take the time to include your quality guidelines in our contract. Not only does this give us a shared understanding of the standards required, but it also provides a solid platform for product acceptance when it comes to delivery.

Death by contract

Don’t get us wrong, there has to be a contract; however, sometimes development partners will lock the paperwork down so hard that you can’t be flexible and you end up with a product that doesn’t work for the intended purpose. We take the time at the start of our engagement to ask the right questions before committing to a quote, this gives us the best chance of defining the right outcome. Additionally, we offer a guarantee on all our work and can include an option for ongoing maintenance if desired.

Knowledge / Goodwill

With any third party development partnership, there is always the worry that all the domain knowledge you’ve just paid for walks out of the door at the end of the contract. This is a real concern and you should always expect any development partner to include fully documented code, build and development environment setup along with a detailed handover. As a bonus, we offer product training and documentation too. We believe thi sets us apart from your regular partner as it allows your in-house team to upskill.

Management Overhead

Employing augmentation demands a change to your project delivery structure. It doesn’t matter how many potential partners come in and tell you it’s a seamless process; you provide high-level requirements and a couple of months later a working product magically appears. You will need to change your in-house team structure to accommodate the new workflow. You will need to invest more heavily in requirements gathering, specification, documentation and communication tools. You will need to move from Quality Assurance (QA) to User Acceptance Testing (UAT) to make sure you are happy with the product. Here at Binary Forge, we help you make this transition as easy as possible, named client product owners and clear escalation routes allow for requirements to be communicated more effectively. Agreed development sprint cycles and regular sprint reviews give you the regular structure that allows you to plan for the best result.

In brief: beat those augmentation challenges

  • Communicate openly and often.
  • Make sure everyone is clear about who is accountable for what.
  • When it comes to quality, you are the one who says what is good enough.

What makes us different?

Our agile way of working allows us to keep you, the customer, at the centre of everything we do. It drives us forward to find the best solution for you and your business and allows us to build a close working relationship that we hope will last for years. Communication is central to our partnerships; it inspires our innovation and fuels our truly unique solutions for integrating devices and systems. Offering bespoke solutions and services, let us know how we can help you with your next project.

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