There has been a natural shift from physically operating businesses to a more remote environment. More businesses have started stripping their physical project infrastructure and replacing it with cloud-based remote models that are accessible, convenient and efficient.
Due to remote movement, software development has become more productive, pace-driven and efficient. Instead of handling people in a single place, more teams are based out of multiple locations. It has given them the much-needed cultural boost and removed the barriers that caused friction in development jobs.
It has also helped accelerate the transformation and enhance software development teams abilities. The flexibility, different time zones and multiple hands on the deck offer more energy and synergy that enable better outcomes. Let’s look at how you can manage the multi-location remote software development team for the ideal outcomes.
5 Reasons Why You Should Hire Remote Software Development Teams
Several businesses opt for remote software development teams instead of on-premise teams. Here are some of the reasons why businesses make this choice.
Ease of Management
Managing the remote software teams is easier. You won’t need to look into their affairs daily. Appointing a project manager and seeking their help can easily resolve your worries and keep you focused on the more important things.
The business can be more productive, lean towards their work requirements and manage all the opportunities with a remote team. In-house teams need more attention and response, which can lead the product owner to move away from the core business needs.
Ownership of Tasks
When you manage a task in-house, the team is only responsible for some of the development-related organizations. However, things change as you move your development to an offshore company. They take pride in managing start to finish development, which results in better ownership and improved task handling. They are capable of managing every aspect of the task, will proactively question the requirements, and be involved.
In case of delays or quality issues, the quality assurance team would take full ownership and management to the best of their capabilities. This reduces your burden and allows you to stay calm and stress free.
Talent Accessibility
Remote software development makes accessing resources easy and effortless. You will find the right resources for your user experience design, managing the multiple strategies and even marketing the application easily. Whether you wish to develop using Flutter or Swift, you will find the right resource for your requirements.
Adds to Cost Efficiency
When you hire a remote team to handle your development requirements, you are waiving off the costs of purchasing the tools, handling the technology and managing the affairs. It is a more cost-effective solution for your software development requirements.
On the other hand, if you were to manage it in-house, you would need to hire the team, create recruiters, and look into the tools and infrastructure. This would be more expensive for your business. Along with purchasing the required infrastructure, you are also responsible for maintaining and keeping them updated. This can be quite a task.
Better Scalability
When adding resources to your in-house team, you need an equipped recruiter with a smart brain to find and add the talent when required. This will add to your costs and efforts. You may need to find the right talent immediately, as required. However, you will notice better scalability when you outsource development to a remote team. Adding resources is easy as they are always available and accessible to the resource bank.
Additionally, getting the resource for the team is never your responsibility; it is the remote software development team’s scope of work. This will not cost you anyway, which is the best part.
Advantages of Multi-Location Remote Teams
With the Covid Pandemic, even offshore software development teams have grown remote. They need more resources working in their physical offices. Instead, several companies have outfits where employees work from around the globe, resulting in more efficient development and faster deployments.
Here we will take a look at the advantages of multi-location remote teams.
Better Employee Retention
Whether you want a particular developer for the business app or they need a resource to stay with the business forever, remote teams make it possible. The employee gets to work from the comfort of their home and city. It makes managing the work and home easier for them, increasing employee satisfaction. As a result, the employees stay longer with the business.
This can impact software development positively, and help you manage things better.
Cultural Diversity
Let’s walk you through why cultural diversity is an advantage for remote software development teams. You will face several clients from across the globe when you are a remote organisation.
The cultural diversity within your team will help you understand the client’s culture better and offer communication protocols and strategies accordingly. It will improve your understanding of the client’s requirements and insights concerning their user base, enhancing your ability to create the best software solution.
Better Collaboration
When the teams work in different locations and manage software development, they have a better collaboration environment. They have attained expertise in managing remote conversations and handling remote jobs. As a result, they would know how to connect with a remote business seeking software development. You won't need to work on a communication or collaboration protocol from the ground up, as they are habituated to handling things without physical meetings.
Challenges You Face with Remote and Multi-Location Teams
While there are several advantages associated with remote multi-location teams, they aren’t without their challenges. Here, we will look at the top challenges you will likely face when you opt for these software development teams.
#1 Tracking the Productivity
It is impossible to tell how much work your remote team completes daily. While you are working, they are resting, and vice versa. The flexibility that comes with remote working can lead to clarity metrics. There needs to be a quantitative method for some teams to measure productivity or accomplishments. This can cause problems in the long run, especially if you don’t have milestones or phases set up for your work.
#2 Determining the Company Culture
As you have a distributed team, it can only be possible to determine a single culture that works for all. Keeping the differences at bay while maintaining the culture will be impossible. You might also find it difficult to ensure that the company’s culture is the same across the organization.
Let’s look at how you can manage distributed remote teams without disrupting your culture or the premise of your organization.
#3 Scheduling the Meetings
This is another issue that you tend to face with remote distributed companies. As all members work in different time zones, setting up a common hour for catchup sessions or kickoff with the client can be challenging. You might want to set up a process to determine the same.
7 Best Practices to Manage Distributed Remote teams
You should have a few tricks up your sleeves to manage the distributed remote teams as the team lead. We have identified some best practices that should help you get started.
Make a Formal Announcement
All stakeholders in the organization need to know that you are a distributed remote company. You should talk to them about your locations, the flexibility you plan to introduce and the work timings for the locations.
You might also want to talk about flexible work timings and scalable teams when formalizing the company’s remote and distributed status. This would help in identifying the communication protocols and moving the needle further. While formalizing the team, you should also determine the software development team structure.
Set Clear Expectations
When managing a remote team that’s geographically distributed, it is important to be clear about your expectations. You may want to identify one culture policy for the entire company. Your work procedures and the overall style should be clear too. It is equally important to manage the communication and ensure everyone knows how that will happen.
Incorporate the Communication Channels
Identifying the right communication tools that can help you with real-time interaction is important. You will be able to manage organisational changes, the addition of resources, new project timelines, and collaboration over codes with these communication tools.
You might want to have a general communication channel combined with specific tools for collaboration to enhance the interactions.
Document Everything
In a remote team, you must document all the aspects, including code transformation and briefs. You should ensure everything is properly documented if you are given a project. For example, there should be a file or folder containing the brief, the kickoff meeting minutes and other details. This way, you can ensure that all the team members know the project’s components and can work seamlessly.
Regular Interaction
You should have a way to engage the team members and foster team interactions. When you work offline, there are ways in which the team members can connect over lunch or tea. However, that doesn’t happen virtually. You can arrange a Friday meetup or something similar that can increase engagement. The team members need to connect and communicate for the right outcome.
Daily Meetings and More
You should have a schedule for the meetings. You can have meetings scheduled for the daily check-ins. At the same time, you may want to have meetings for the particular project. Ensure you have the right tools and infrastructure to help your people work remotely and check in during the meetings. You can have a scrum master to improve the quality of your meetings and ensure smooth workflow.
Ask for Feedback
When you work virtually, you may have different issues. This is true for the distributed teams spread geographically. You may want to listen to these issues and identify ways to rectify them. This will improve productivity and enhance the employee experience. Eventually, it will help with retention and enhance software development quality.
Top 5 Tools to Help Manage the Software Development Team
You may want to invest in the right tools and infrastructure if you wish to manage a successful software development team. Here, we have defined the tools that you must have.
Slack
This real-time messenger should be a part of every remote distributed team. You can create channels for your different departments and enhance collaboration with the team.
Trello
It is an excellent tool for project management. You can create tasks, share it with team members and increase the productivity of the team.
Jira
This is the lifeline of a software development team as it allows collaboration, task allocation, and deadline management to easily. It helps build an agile team in the distributed environment.
Microsoft Teams
It is a real-time messenger tool integrated with Outlook for better collaboration and instant file sharing and to enhance a remote team’s communication capability. With this tool, you can manage a good software development team with ease.
Loom
This is a must-have tool for asynchronous collaboration, where you can record screens and videos to show the problems and have the team fix them.
Conclusion
Distributed remote teams are growing in the post-Covid era as more businesses have given up physical offices for cloud-based organizations. The distributed teams improve cultural exposure, offer more cost-effective development strategies and enhance the organisation's overall productivity. However, managing communication, ensuring a single culture and defining a schedule can be challenging. You should incorporate the best practices to ensure the remote offices work smoothly.
Lavorg is a leading software development company in Germany with expertise in mobile and web. We have a distributed remote setup that allows us to offer cost-efficient offshore app development services. Get a free consultation plus audit to identify the issues with your current software and the solution defined for your business. Fill out the contact us form and connect with our team .