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The past two years of the post-pandemic period have brought significant transformations together with the new challenges to the organization of work and the way people engage in the workplace. And these changes are ongoing. Companies of all sizes, including scaling startups, are looking for remote software developers to supplement the team with the lacking specialists, boost growth and gain a competitive advantage.
Working with remote developers is challenging. Management of the remote team is often associated with missed deadlines, broken workflow, concerned managers, and customers under stress. Is it the old-fashioned stigma?
The modern, efficient project management practices applied by our team are the best proof that management of remote software development can be smoothly organized, relieving the level of stress to a minimum and maximizing the efficiency of the team of developers.
Organized workflow, specific company culture, transparency of all processes, meeting the timelines, and productive communication will be your reality, not a dream. This article is a guide compiled based on more than ten years of experience working as a remote team.
Being aware of all the challenges, pitfalls, and pain points of startups that scale, our tech talents share efficient ways to cope with them and successfully organize productive long-term remote cooperation.
Why do companies choose remote cooperation?
Remote cooperation is an attractive option for company decision-makers lacking technology specialists with tech talent to supplement their teams. Why do companies hire remote team members? It happens for several reasons.
- Primarily, it opens access to a global talent pool with no limitations. It means a good opportunity to hire the best software engineers, no matter the location and timezone.
- Moreover, the hiring company cuts the costs on office expenses and all the necessary infrastructure. For example, IBM cut the costs by $50 million on real estate expenses by hiring a team of remote specialists.
- The convenient working environment means higher productivity and loyalty of employees. Remote workers are more productive than their colleagues working in the office. It has a positive impact on their work-life balance, offering a great degree of flexibility, thus raising the quality of work they do and
Overall it is the best way to reasonably distribute the budget and complement your team with lacking specialists.
How hiring remote developers is favourable to Startups in 2022?
Startups often have limited budgeting, scarcity of time, and the need to get excellent in-time tech support not to miss the scaling opportunity.
World-renowned global companies, such as Skype and WhatsApp, once being startups at the scaling stage, have also benefited from hiring remote outsourcing teams to fulfill their technology needs. You wonder why? Since work with remote developers provides excellent benefits, in particular:
- Allows hiring a time of specialists within the shortest time and quickly launch the scaling process;
- Provides the needed level of flexibility, allowing you to hire remote developers without the long-term commitment, paying only for the services you need.
- Save in hiring budget, choosing the talents from tech hubs offering lower rates, but the high quality of service.
How to build a good remote software development team for your business
It is great if you are experienced in managing the in-house team. However, hiring and managing the remote software development team can pose a tricky challenge. Here are the key considerations that should be taken into account when hiring a remote development team:
Evaluate hiring options
Choice of a good remote software partner from various possible candidates may take time. Concentrate on the recommendations, social media profiles, awards, successful cases.
Define your main needs
Decide the specialists you need and for how long. This clear understanding will narrow down the list of options significantly.
Define the suitable time zones
Try defining the best talent hubs in the matching time zones with your working schedule. It will simplify the management of communication.
Relevant experience
Tech skills and knowledge are not the only factors influencing the level of professionalism of the remote development team. Make sure the candidates have experience delivering similar complex projects as expertise in your business niche.
Personal dedication
A remote environment requires hard work, total dedication, and the ability to be a team player. Evaluate these characteristics of the potential remote development candidate. Try to access the communication skills the power of the remote developer culture values to align with your philosophy and goals. Passion and desire to learn and cooperate are turnkey factors in the hiring process.
Traps to look out for when managing remote software development
Many business CTO’s feel skeptical about hiring a remote team of developers. And it is not much wonder if we consider all the misconceptions and stereotypes related to this type of cooperation.
Pitfalls you should take into account and efficient solutions.
Undermined level of communication
One of the most challenging aspects of the management of remote teams is the very process of communication. Communication also impacts the quality of work and its efficiency.
Solution
Modern tech space offers a variety of tools fostering productive communication with remote teams. Such tools also increase transparency synchronization and support the smooth and efficient workflow.
Put in place the KPI measurements so that the team will know what is expected. Organize open discussions to hear the feedback and opinion of your development teams. It will help to detect and eliminate the general inefficiencies and pinpoints.
Lower engagement
Working remotely also affects employee engagement. Such a cooperation model allows more freedom in planning the working hours; however, it may not allow the appropriate degree of synchronization.
Solution
Set the goals and state what you expect from the remote software developer. Introduce regular sync meetings to make sure everyone is on the same site. Moreover, concentrate on the team’s results, not the time they are working. Prioritize the deliverables offering your development teams the specific degree of freedom that they want when doing the remote work.
Slow knowledge exchange
It may not be easy or stay at the same site of things when working remotely. There may be no single vision of the project because of inconveniences caused by the remote work model.
Solution
As the practice shows, it is not enough to establish regular online meetings and sync calls with team members. Familiarize the team with the overall project goals, business knowledge, and objectives.
Timezone differences
It is a well-known issue arising between people working remotely. However, if approached correctly, it could be easily eliminated.
Solution
Use the golden hours efficiently to make both sides available for communication and productive remote work. There are cases when golden hours do not exist. Then, there is always an opportunity to turn to written reporting. Ensure an emergency communication channel that will be active all day round to solve the possible arising issues.
Efficient Collaboration tools
Guidelines for successful remote team management
Managing remote software developers depends on cultural specificities and works approach. Considering the certain potential risks, our team demonstrates prolific cooperation by having a list of successfully finished projects. Thus, having over a decade of experience in supporting rapidly growing startups, our experts have shared the guidelines helping in managing a remote team.
Guidelines to manage the remote teams
- Establish clear project guidelines. It boosts productivity, allows managing accounting, and organizes teamwork. Ensure to uphold the same standard for the in-house and remote teams.
- Compile the presentation of your project idea in detail. Ensure the team members understand the project objectives and are aware of the main goals. A clear vision of the project also guarantees that you will start the development process quicker.
- Distribute the tasks among the developers and monitor the timelines. Take the project requirements document as a basis to make sure that all the functionality details and design requirements will be taken into account.
- Build the excellent process. You have gathered a team of people from the other spot of the globe. It may take time for them to produce outstanding results. Support and keep continuous integration, encourage knowledge sharing and tune the communication exchange to foster Agile development methodology with your remote teams.
- What matters in the efficient management of the remote team members is the choice of the methodology. Our software developers consider that the proven efficient methodology is Agile. It allows the needed degree of flexibility and transparency and increases involvement. Agile minimizes the expenses and enables fast time to market and quick implementation of the new features.
- Working schedules overlap. Make sure the core working hours fall within the working hours with your remote team, book sync meetings, and adhere to regular scrum meetings of Agile.
Our experience of working as remote developers
We help our clients to extend the development teams, knowing how to successfully overcome the lack of trust and smoothly tune all the processes to relieve the tension. Over the years, we have learned various practices and adapted to overcome many remote employee management challenges.
Detailed documentation allows avoiding confusion while managing a remote team. Creation of the detailed roadmap, clear product vision, assessing the true resource commitment of the team members to your projects, and rational budget planning are our strengths compared to other companies.
Values of our remote development team
Company values guide everything our team members do. As a rule, any software developer’s team management starts with setting clear goals. It helps us to uncover the main business needs and objectives of the current team.
This analytical procedure helps us to immerse into the uncovering stage and assess the current situation adequately.
We can either manage the existing team or, having the necessary experience, offer advanced project managers who will efficiently and effectively guide and control the whole project workflow. We split the entire process into separate stages to maximize efficiency and reach the needed results.
Essential aspects for hiring remote software developers
It is essential for all the remote developers’ teams to have a clear project vision and where the project is going. It will drive them through the entire remote process inspire them in making smart choices to contribute to your company’s welfare.
How we work
Altamira is an ambitious technology partner ready to support the sustainable growth of your startup. Our remote development teams have clearly established metrics guiding us through the entire development process.
We assist companies that have already outgrown their tech capabilities to scale up rapidly and establish a strong position in the marketplace. Our top priorities are a client-centric approach, fast time to market, wise budget planning, and full dedication.
Transparency of processes in the company and ability for clients to control and take an active part in the development process and all the meetings held. It helps us to make sure that both partners are doing what it takes to successfully deploy the product and satisfy business objectives.
- We provide a solid support for ambitious startups full of confidence and talent, creating a detailed growth plan.
- Enable you to choose the best suitable cooperation model that you are comfortable with;
- Attract and retain the needed remote workers with a tech talent for your growth journey, rationally distributing roles and responsibilities;
- Data management, security, choice of the right tech stack important for efficient business scaling
- Compile and manage all the necessary documentation
- Guarantee all the detailed in-time reports
- Provide agile business support, build long-term cooperation, and nurture exceptional company culture.
Our success stories
Global Pet Security
One of our last successful projects is Global Pet security. It is a startup aimed at helping pet owners to keep all the information in one place, share it, and get notified about upcoming events.
The app aimed to solve problems connected to the necessity to show proof of vaccines and additional medical history, the risks to lost the documents, or loss of the pet.
Considering the main business objectives identifying the biggest pain points, we have helped the client create the vision of the idea. The app functionality includes a unique set of features, in particular:
- Generate QR code
- Keep pet’s information (medical history etc.)
- Breeders and brokers put information
- GPS tracking
- Allow the public to see the information about pet (configurable)
- Link microchip to the QR code
Props tech
Another example of the latest projects we were working on is Props Tech. It is a startup for simplifying the communication and relationship between tenants and landlords. It is a great props tech solution allowing to automatize the process of request management and efficient solving of the arising issues.
The app creates the request directs it to the right executor. It is also possible to track the status of the issue.
This unique app allows to efficiently manage the renting process, simplify payments, add transparency to the business flow as well as build community for property management through a mobile app.
We guarantee smooth cooperation thanks to well-tuned processes.
While working on these projects, we have demonstrated high efficiency and achieved absolute cohesion. We utilize a set of software tools enabling us to provide absolute transparency to our clients and establish productive cooperation. Jira, Slack, and Confluence allow us to maintain the smooth flow of information within the team and the client.
To sum up
Remote software development team management may pose a serious challenge. However, following the practical tips and being aware of the pitfalls described in the article, you will be able to shape your own efficient approach.
Being a full-cycle development team, Altamira supplies a competitive quality of service, supplementing our clients with the best tech talents at favorable budgeting. We have value our clients and cultivate a special company culture, making our customers’ features not a bug.
