How to Manage an Offshore QA Team to Overcome the Challenges of Outsourcing

 Managing any project or team to work seamlessly as per your expectations is a challenging job. And when you outsource your project or service, it becomes even tougher for you to manage them. Your offshore team will have different time zones, different work patterns, and approaches to reach the outcome.

Even with all the challenges, outsourcing a project is widely accepted. The reason why outsourcing is popular in the US, is cost-effectiveness and improved service. When surveyed about outsourcing projects, mobile app development is most frequently outsourced. However, the percentage of outsourcing has ranged within 50–60% in the past five years. In 2018 the value of the global outsourcing market reached $85.6 billion.

So, what are the common challenges which companies outsourcing their project face, and what are possible staffing solutions?

Common Challenges with Offshore Staffing Team

Often the off-site staffing solutions are portrayed as execution partners for certain features or functions or a system. To have a successful mobile app, it is important to sketch out the complete vision of the project, which is actually missing when partnering.

Other challenges are -

· Choosing a trustworthy offshore staffing service.

· Issues with effective communication such as language barrier, hard to understand changes and implement them efficiently, misinterpreted feedback, and unorganized team’s workflow.

· Cultural differences may influence the overall testing process.

· A huge time difference leads to delays.

· Keeping up with the deadlines and delivering bug reports fast.

· Results sometimes not meeting the expectations when looked from a different angle.

· Not sure whether the temporary staffing services are making progress or not.

Roadmap to Manage offshore QA Successfully

Here are few things to optimize, improve, and successfully work with the offshore & virtual teams.

Connect with companies that welcome change

Technology changes rapidly, so do teams learn to adapt to the evolving technology. It is always profitable to work with naturally curious and always learning teams. They can easily link with you on different platforms, especially when you want to conduct meetups, conferences, and events to improve their collective knowledge.

Hire Companies that follow Hybrid Model

Because offshore companies tend to be cost-effective, over 50% of IT departments outsource staffing service for QA. But, to solve the issue of time zone differences, connect with the staffing solution agency that promotes a hybrid model. These companies have a dedicated team (especially project managers) available as per the customer’s time zone. This model leverages distributed teams to get their product to market efficiently and speedily.

Encourage Positive Feedback

When working with an offshore team you should effectively communicate with them about the tasks and objectives that need to be completed within a set timeline. No matter where you live, positive & regular feedback encourages the team to work efficiently, which also strengthens working relationships.

Monitoring Performance & Establishing One Consistent Process

Regular check-ins, where multiple stakeholders & decision-makers are involved in the project, becomes significant. For everyone to follow the best strategy and maintain the very structured approach, it is important to align a process of engagement. From coding to testing, standardized practices must be followed by both offshore and on-site staffing.

Fostering Offshore Staffing with Similar Projects Experience

Trusting off-shore staffing solution agencies can be difficult, thus reviewing their skills, qualities, and past achievements can help. Also, creating a unified culture for in-house teams as well as the team across borders, despite different time zones and employment statuses, depicts leadership qualities.

Regardless of differences, everyone’s focus must incline towards a common goal, to make the project successful. You can choose teams that have experience working remotely in the same situation and have successfully delivered quality with similar clients.

In the Nutshell

Hiring an offshore staffing agency or staffing solution for a feature, system, or a project and managing them like your on-shore can be challenging. When the objective is one, the vision must be clear between both off-shore and on-shore teams. Building a proper common communication channel, regular feedback, and monitoring progress can solve a lot of problems.

When employing off-shore teams, check whether they can work with different time zones, changing technology, and can easily adapt to different platforms. If you want a win-win situation, then foster a similar culture, and respect their expertise.