When an organization has dedicated to outsource a job to other company outside its organizational structure, it may have to deal with risks pertaining to software outsourcing. Hiring a stranger to get your work done always has an element of uncertainty. To minimize failures and maximize ROI, there are some good practices to follow in software outsourcing. The practice includes selecting a suitable vendor, apply effective outsourcing strategy, manage risks, and oversee the complete software development life cycle.
Selecting a Vendor
A vendor should be selected that suits the software development need and is capable of fulfilling the project expectations within the deployment deadlines. Researching for a suitable vendor starts from viewing their portfolios, and their reviews in the market. Financially the vendor should keep the production costs in check and the post deployment training must not go overboard as well. The vendor should have significant experience and commendable expertise in software outsourcing and should look promising to complete the software development project. The provisions for project management must be flexible and fall under your operation management. Last, but not the least, the vendor should be open to change requirements and respect them by inculcating the changes in the live project.
After a vendor is selected, the outsourcing company should get to know its partner, their visions, and their business processes. Understanding the right mix of technology, costs, risks, quality, and dedication involved in the SDLC gives the knowledge on the complexity of the situation and decision making assistance to deal with it. Constant communications is a prerequisite for any business partnership. The communications should be transparent and uninterrupted with a round the clock technical assistance at hand.
The SDLC should start from conveying comprehensive business requirements, specifications, and expectations to the vendor. Elaborating the necessary requirements would give the vendor analyst team a clear idea of what is needed and what is to be done. The vendor in return may suggest the technical architecture to be used and strategies for project management to you. A constant process of communications between the two business partners must include feedback for process improvement and quality assurance.
During the SDLC the vendors provide a regular report of the project status to the software outsourcing partner so that you can keep in constant update of your software development project. The reporting helps in tracking the bugs before they end up live and resolving them to provide a flawless user experience with the software.
Risk Management
Risks can and do turn up at any point of time during the SDLC. To plan for probable risks and be ready for them is a practice to be followed by all businesses. Some unplanned risks may also incur, but the project must not be haltered. Risks may be strategic (core product knowledge), operational (quality and performance), financial (production costs), and legal (IPR and contracts). Risk management is the core part of any business, so these risks should be managed to be mitigated. To mitigate risks make an optimum use of technology to stay updated with analysis and reporting, manage the knowledgebase to conquer the risk, have a good control process, and the contracts should be flexible to be rewritten in case of unmanageable risks (like the legal risks).
Signing the Service Level Agreement
While signing a contract, make sure you have deliverable goals and realistic objectives. Many projects tend to get off the track, hence stay focused all the while. The Service Level Agreement should reflect all the vital terms and conditions with no hidden motives to keep the trust and relationship strong between the signing software outsourcing companies. You should take into account known issues and foresee the risks involved. Spread the responsibility for a stronger collaboration in the software development team.