5 Mistakes Not to Make When Choosing a Software Development Company
By: Romit Mewada
Tags: Outsourcing, Vision, Failure, Software Development

When you start looking for a web developer, you already know the type of project for which you are hiring. You understand what your needs are and, therefore, are looking for someone to help you fulfill your vision. Unfortunately, you don’t have a crystal ball or a time machine to help you ensure that the freelancer or agency you hire is right. Not to worry- I have the top 5 mistakes to avoid when hiring software development agencies.

1. Choosing the cheapest solution

Developers who already worked on various projects and have some international experience, offer higher rates. The value costs more. Although these professionals know how to organize the whole process. They use the newest technologies and hardware. That way, your app will be finished faster. You will avoid possible delays, a lot of bug fixing, or in the worst-case scenario.

If you decide on a software house that offers the lowest rate, it doesn’t mean you will pay the lowest overall cost. The lowest price per hour may be tempting, but it doesn’t include the length of a project. And it’s highly possible that the cheapest developers are not so experienced, skilled, and do not manage projects properly.

Developing long term relations with developers will help you to get a reasonable price combined with knowledge and high quality.

2. Unclear vision and Project’s requirements

When it comes to outsourcing, you do not want to save money and time but also focus on the goal of your company. Despite the fact that you need to search and hire a software development company that understands your business’s requirements and vision. Plus, the team has to be experienced and knowledgeable enough to advise you. This feedback about your product will help you. You will get ideas to expand it after getting helpful feedback.

Now, let’s talk about the project’s requirements. First of all, it’s vital to note that a software development company hired by you is not working for you; it is working with you. The collaboration method should be cleared from the very beginning. Most of the software development projects fail because of miscommunication or misunderstanding between clients and companies. This barrier can be easily avoided by establishing effective and clear communication. By using collaboration tools such as Asana, Jira, Trello nTask, and Fleep, you can seamlessly engage with the outsourced development team.

3. Unrealistic Timeline

There are times for emergencies, and there are more moments for careful steps forward. If you need your project done yesterday, you will end up paying more for often an inferior result. Expecting a massive project to be done too quickly will mean you will have to settle for developers who are bored for a reason. As with any project, if things are rushed, mistakes will happen. Understand that for your vision to fully develop: you need to be realistic in your timeline.

4. Choosing Short-Term Relationships

Most businesses don’t think about what happens to their project after it launches. How will you maintain that expensive product? Hiring a team that can help maintain your website or operational software is essential. You may get your product looking great upon launch, but without the proper maintenance, that website/app may get clunky and unmanageable. Hire someone who will build and maintain your vision.

5. Treating the outsourced team as a different team

When you have an extended development team, this is one of the biggest mistakes you can make: depriving the outsourced team members of knowledge of your business, thus essentially building a management layer between you and them. One crucial ramification of this is that your extended team would not have a comprehensive view of the business and the project at hand, potentially resulting in unoptimized or inappropriate solutions. In addition, the perceived lack of trust and feeling of alienation could also bring down their morale, motivation, and in effect, productivity.

That’s why it is important to take care of the extended team members in the same way that you would your own people. Your efforts in this aspect will greatly factor in the success of your projects and company over the long term. See to it that you are heavily involved in the day-to-day updates with a senior lead on the client-side, send over the work with the needed information, and answer questions to guide the developers. This is what you would normally do with your core team, and I can never overemphasize the advice that you should treat your extended team no different than yours.

Lastly, paying them a visit maybe once or twice a year would bring about a very positive impact on the global output.

Conclusion

There are many more tips and tricks when hiring for web development or design, but these 5 are important while deciding who best fits your needs.

I hope that this article has interested and helps you improve finding investors for your startup. Feel free to share this article if you liked it.

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