Want to start a project?
Our team is ready to implement your ideas. Contact us now to discuss your roadmap!
get in touch
These days, it is the dream of software companies to be able to outsource their work as much as possible. At the same time, they still want to be able to adopt Agile software development process. Their goal is often to combine the many advantages of outsourcing such as access to a larger talent pool, cost reduction, and more, plus the flexibility that Agile development process follows.
Since the Agile software development process involves a lot of high-level collaboration, it is often said that going offshore following the Agile development process is more difficult. More often than not, waterfall development is suggested for those who are going offshore.
Scrum is executed in temporary blocks that are short and periodic, called Sprints, which usually range from 2 to 4 weeks, which is the term for feedback and reflection. Each Sprint is an entity in itself, that is, it provides a complete result, a variation of the final product that must be able to be delivered to the client with the least possible effort when requested.
The process has as a starting point, a list of requirements that make up the project plan. It is the client of the project that prioritizes these objectives considering a balance of the value and the cost, that is how the iterations and consequent deliveries are determined.
On the one hand the market demands quality, fast delivery at lower costs, for which a company must be very agile and flexible in the development of products to achieve short development cycles that can meet the demand of customers without undermining and compromising the quality of the result. It is a very easy and appropriate methodology to implement and very popular for the quick results it gets.
Scrum methodology is used popularly for software development, but other sectors are also taking advantage of its benefits by implementing this methodology in their organizational models such as sales, marketing department or HR teams.
Problems in Agile process
As with other development models, the Agile software development process has its fair share of common problems. Below are some of the common problems that are encountered when doing offshore outsourcing at the same time following Agile development process:
Requirement management, as well as customer involvement, is a challenge. This is especially true in terms of language barriers, challenges in establishing the credibility of the Agile software development company with the customer, as well as timing and long feedback intervals from the team to the client.
Collaboration is essential in the Agile software development process. However, when applying it to an offshore team, there is often a challenge in terms of ineffective collaboration. The spreading of news may not be done effectively. There is also poor team coordination, a challenge in creating common knowledge as well as a shared vision among the teams, and lowered team morale. On top of that, there are often challenges when it comes to cultural differences.
? Read more: Offshore Development Company
Often managing offshore teams is difficult for project managers especially when tracking the progress of the tasks, management of team knowledge, and a difference in the understanding of the “definition of done.” General supervision and control is also often difficult, including effort estimation, among other things.
There are always issues with inadequate IT infrastructure, different levels of architecture and design skills among the developers, and an inability to have a common understanding based on different best practices between in-house and offshore teams. There is also a challenge when it comes to ensuring the levels of quality, plus code ownership. Above all, there are headaches when it comes to configuration and integration, and many more.
Although these challenges may seem daunting, the truth is that outsourced projects and teams can still successfully apply Agile methodology and survive. Naturally, it would require a whole other approach and mindset from both the offshore teams and the client. In most cases, usually one or both of the parties have to adapt and make changes that veer away from the traditional and known processes.
? Read more: Software Outsourcing Process
For those who seek to combine the Agile process with outsourcing, there are some ways to make it successful. Below are a couple of tips that may be helpful in making this integration possible:
It is a known fact that working remotely may cause alienation to some extent. Having face-to-face meetings is truly the most effective, and perhaps the best, way to build trust. Prepare to have an amount in the budget to enable frequent team visits with the in-house development team, offshore team, or recurring face-to-face meetings, ideally together with the customer. If possible, these meetings should be around one to two weeks apart.
The truth is that several problems that may have long-lasting repercussions could be mitigated or repaired with human interactions during these visits. In order for the project to succeed, there must be unity and teamwork. As such, team dinners, field trips, or other team building activities can also aid in building relationships between the team members and even the customer.
It is relatively easy for clients to spot out exceptional individual developers. Skills and drive are often not hard to miss, especially when the team member is vocal about ideas and is quick to respond. However, the idea of the Agile software development process is to have team collaboration. In order for the Agile development process to work properly, there must be teamwork; hence, individual excellence is often not highlighted.
It is through the understanding that each team member is essential and plays an important role that contributes to the success of the project. By establishing unity and equality, each member will become more comfortable in collaborating with the rest of the team – be it in their home country, or with the offshore team.
Thus, it is important that the track record of the team is highlighted or evaluated as opposed to their individual achievements. Often, there is a need to use behavioral assessment techniques when making selections as to which members are going to work well with the team and are capable of working in an Agile software development company.
These days, everybody is claiming they are Agile. There is a need to ensure that the sprints are short, and success criteria is defined properly based on the delivery timeline, acceptance tests, and many other minute details that are important to you and the company. Planning ahead and preparing for the worst is necessary for risk mitigation. This is why starting small, and ramping up is often suggested as the better approach.
After each spring, there is a need to verify that the offshore team is performing well or not, and soon make the necessary adjustments. This also ensures that the team is steered in the correct and desired direction. After team performance analysis, it should be clear to see whether business objectives can be achieved with the offshore team or not.
To be able to succeed as both an outsourcing and an Agile software company, there is a need to adjust since these two concepts do not automatically go well together. There is a need to have careful adaptations of the Agile software development process as well as the communication channels between the client and the outsourcing vendor in order to achieve success.
The truth is that Agile projects really require a high level of communication between the outsourcing development team and the client. Each department needs to put honesty on the table and have transparency with what is going on. Unfortunately, it happens that the outsourcers sometimes tell clients what they assume to be the information that the client needs and simply refrain from offering suggestions, thinking that the client might be offended. Other times, either side would misunderstand the other, or there would be erroneous information being shared. In order to increase success, there is a need to over-communicate or set up several communication channels such as chat, emails, web conferences, and meetups.
In addition, clients must have a dedicated representative or point of contact. This person needs to be knowledgeable with all the aspects of the project being developed and should be able to relay effectively the information from the client to the offshore team. The client needs to empower the representative with enough authorization to approve work or make changes when needed.
It is a good idea to make use of management tools such as JIRA and TFS in order to help with communication in addition, a centralized source of information is ideal such as a shared wiki.
Some development companies take in clients as if they are a set of requirement specifications. The team will attempt to implement the orders of the client exactly as they are specified, and often developers do not usually think outside the box or dare to advise clients. When choosing a company to partner with, it is important to find the one with technical capabilities as well as Agile methodology. They should also have relevant experience regarding the business domain in which the project to be developed is identified with.
When choosing an Agile software company, here are some useful criteria that might help:
Relevant experience – Check out the team’s references regarding their experience. Know what worked well and what didn’t work out for the past partners. talking to the references helps to understand if there was anything that they would have appreciated that the vendor did differently, or not.
Company culture – Does the vendor have an Agile-minded, flexible and constantly improving mindset? Finding a true software partner might be a challenge, but it becomes easy once the vendor shows a commitment to the client’s long-term success. The ideal vendor attempts to learn all that they can about the business of the client, as well as aligning themselves with the goals of the client. More often than not, their view of the project is one that helps the clients reach their goals at the same time maintaining the culture of the company.
Credentials and awards – This might seem rather petty, but it is important to do a check on the vendor. Their website would already give a general impression of how professional the company is. It also helps to check the professional certifications of the vendor; for example, if they have a Certified Scrum Professional, Certified Scrum Master, or Certified Scrum Product Owner certification to their name. In addition, do they have any awards received for their performance in outsourcing? Or some other award that shows their technology competency? For outsourcing vendors that focus on software testing, then it would be certifications for ISTQB and the like. These may be small things, but it does show how much capability the vendor has.
The Agile process highlights the importance of frequent deliveries of working software. This ranges from a couple of weeks to every couple of months. Therefore, automation needs to be built into each step in order to achieve the required frequent deliveries and to ensure the software is working.
There is a need to put a test automation framework in place so that tests can be provided that are easily understood by the stakeholders. The ideal framework should be easy to execute and maintain. it should be able to run quickly and executed at the right level. On top of that, the framework should ideally be able to run at scheduled executions and tests that fail should be addressed as soon as possible. For acceptance tests, there needs to be a broader automated framework that allows for rapid turnaround of the internal releases that are up for distribution.
On top of the usual automation procedure, the automated test suite is ideally accessible to all members from in-house to the offshore team. That way, everyone is able to execute it with just a click of a button. Whenever someone wants to run a test before or after committing a code, they should be able to easily run the test suite and find out if there are issues easily and with minimum fuss.
Agile development involves continuous integration, so checking code frequently and in small increments is observed. Aside from this, the implementation of source control builds and test automation should be considered as collaboration tools. That way, everybody on the team is on the same page, which decreases the possibility of surprises and even provides fast feedback on issues found.
With over 6 years working with Agile development process, hope our sharing is valuable for you!
Saigon Technology is pleased to be named in the list of the top 15 software companies in Vietnam for many years in a row, and is trusted by a large number of customers from the United States, Canada, Australia ... with many large-scale projects, variety brands. It can be claimed that Saigon Technology's current success is mostly due to human elements, with approximately 150 devoted and professional Developer specialists contributing.
It's no accident that Saigon Technology ranks among the top 15 national businesses. Naturally, with the flexibility to adapt to various scale projects in a variety of exciting sectors such as e-Commerce, healthcare, finance, logistics, and so on... The Developers at Saigon Technology have a wide range of programming languages under their belts.
Furthermore, Saigon Technology has been recognized as one of Vietnam's Best Outsourcing Companies for many years, having received the VINASA Certificate of Excellence in IT Development Outsourcing and Top Software Development Outsourcing Company. Saigon Technology is guaranteed to be a superb brand for supporting most of your ideas or projects, utilizing technologies like ASP.NET, AngularJS, NodeJS, React JS, iOS and Android / React Native, and most significantly, the competing service cost and quality demonstrated through the years!
ScienceSoft is an IT consulting and software development company founded in 1989. Starting as a small AI product manufacturing company, ScienceSoft later moved into IT services in 2002. Since then , the company has pursued the direction of assisting non-IT businesses and software product companies in improving their business performance and quickly acquiring new customers.
With 32 years in the IT industry, Walmart, IBM, Nestle, eBay, NASA JPL, and many other medium and large enterprises worldwide are among ScienceSoft's customers. At this company, there are more than 700 in-house IT professionals and a global network of partnerships with a rigorous process that complies with ISO 9001, ISO 27001 and IEC 62304.
ScienceSoft resonates and holds a certain position in the fields of CRM, Data Analytics, Collaboration & Knowledge Management and Information Security. Through a partnership with ScienceSoft, customers can develop on-demand and platform-based software. They also have a wide range of quality assurance and testing services, as well as 24/7 support for IT infrastructure and applications.
FPT Software was formed in Vietnam in 1999 and has since grown to include FPT USA Corp., RWE IT Slovakia, FPT Japan Holdings Co., Ltd., and FPT Software Asia Pacific Pte. Ltd. FPT Software is CMMI Level 5 and ISO 27001: 2013 certified as well as ASPICE LEVEL 3 in Smart Factory, Digital Platform, RPA, AI, IoT, Enterprise Mobilization, Cloud, AR/VR, Embedded System, Managed Service, Testing, Modern Platformization, Business Applications, Application Services, and BPO.
FPT has also been the AWS Advanced Consulting Partner, Microsoft Gold Certified Partner, SAP Partner for Mobile Application Development, AWS Advanced Consulting Partner, Microsoft Gold Certified Partner, SAP Partner for Mobile Application Development, AWS Advanced Consulting Partner, Microsoft Gold Certified Partner, Microsoft Gold Certified Partner, Microsoft Gold Certified Partner, Microsoft Gold Certified Partner…
At Syberry Corporation, they have designed, engineered, and deployed software solutions for US organizations of all sizes in virtually every industry. Headquartered in Austin, Texas, Syberry's team grows day by day, bringing a wealth of technical and business knowledge to develop complex, diverse online and mobile solutions to meet the needs of customers. specific software requirements of each customer.
They put customer relationships first, and they promise clear pricing, great communication, and high-quality work as they use their industry knowledge to create amazing custom software solutions. , strive to achieve the best results for each customer.
KMS Technology, an outsourcing company that develops software products worldwide, today announced that it will open a new office in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam at the end of June 2010. The new office will be most equipped. advanced technology, will be the company's second location in Vietnam. The slogan of KMS Technology says: “Not only recruiting the best individuals in the internal area, but also always looking for talent in many other parts of the world. Therefore, it is clear that the services they provide are quite extensive. Product development focused on App Conversion, Cloud Migration and mobile development are among these services.
Through their customer-centric strategy, the team expedites the delivery of innovative software solutions from the headquarters in Atlanta, GA, with locations in California and Vietnam. Their engineers help businesses get to market faster so they can focus on developing their main business.
itransition is an international software engineering and consulting company. Their projects span over 40 countries and continue to grow, with more than 2,200 professionals working daily to deliver business value through technology at itransition's US and European locations.
With such wide coverage and abundant staff resources, itransition has served more than 800 customers from various industries since 1998. They are small and medium enterprises, corporations and corporations. startups look to us as a trusted technology partner with expertise and specific capabilities in their field; such as healthcare, finance, retail, automotive, hi-tech…
In terms of quality management, like many other companies, itransition is a quality-oriented software development company that establishes and maintains high software engineering standards while adhering to management systems quality and information security compliance.
TechTIQ Solutions' mission is to provide businesses with cost-effective digital solutions that enable them to better interact with consumers and grow their businesses in the digital age. TechTIQ Solutions provides consulting services, outlines digital transformation project requirements, monitors and provides perfectly implemented solutions that will ultimately lead to improved customer satisfaction. to businesses through cooperative partnerships with them. The company offers a range of domain knowledge-based digital transformation services, focusing on:
While TechTIQ Solutions may be a young company with a relatively short history, they have a strong legacy of passionate IoT engineers, software developers, and business analysts and have provided Grants over 0.5 million project efforts to clients, spanning expertise across multiple sectors including banking, logistics, transportation, media, healthcare and others.
CShark was founded in 2014, is a bespoke software development, mobile application development and product design company based in Wroclaw, Poland. Currently, they have more than 270 employees working on projects for big brands and startups across various sectors, including multinational banks, IT service companies, electronic hardware and software, oil and energy, biotechnology, logistics and other industries. They specialize in C#, NET, .NET Core, Go, Java, PHP, frontend technology and mobile technology, and they build software solutions.
The ODS Group was established to assist businesses in the US and Singapore in finding qualified developers for their projects. Developers of ODS Group Australia are currently working at the 'common home' in Vietnam, a rapidly growing 'technologist' in Southeast Asia.
Despite having the advantage of having a wide portfolio of young and talented developers to choose from, ODS Group has always carefully selected the most qualified individuals for its clients' projects. Because ODS Group has improved its process over time and has a track record of winning projects, Australian and New Zealand companies can now leverage "instant" developer knowledge.
DCSL GuideSmiths has been building custom software since 1994 and they have also earned a reputation as a leading digital transformation partner. DCSL GuideSmiths creates smart, cost-effective and intuitive online applications, cloud systems, desktop applications and mobile applications that support startups and established organizations to streamline operations and create new income streams. By providing simple, cost-effective, and scalable technology solutions, DCSL helps customers automate, streamline, and simplify their operations.
As a Leading Vietnam Software Development Outsourcing Company, we dedicate to your success by following our philosophy:
YOUR SUCCESS IS OUR MISSION.
