You’ve defined a business problem, but don’t know how to drive towards a solution. We’ve all been there. What’s the next step? Do you build it in-house or do you go to a trusted software development agency with all the resources you need at your fingertips? How do you write a requirements document to present to your potential software development partners? How do you even begin to find these partners? So many questions to answer in such little time. Don’t worry, I’ve got your back.
Real Quick: Outsourcing ≠ Offshoring
Ok, what’s the difference between outsourcing and offshoring your work? Offshoring is outsourcing, but not all outsourcing is offshore… got it?
For example, AndPlus is a Boston based software development agency. Our team is 100% in-house as full time employees under one roof, no part-timers, no contractors and nobody looking at your code that isn’t a full time resource that is heavily involved in our internal culture. We don’t staff resumes to fill a void, we staff teams that solve problems.
Why Outsource Software Projects?
We’ve talked about this on our blog pretty often. Basically there are three options when it comes to building a software solution from the ground up.
- Hire full time, in-house development team. This means Design, engineering, QA and Project management.
- Find short-term contractors that can get your work done on a small project-by-project basis
- Outsource the work to a qualified agency with consultation, implementation and lifecycle support experience. This is what AndPlus specializes in.
After weighing your options, you probably ended up at option 3 (otherwise I have no idea how you ended up here, but hi!) and you were smart to do so! But why choose an external partner rather than build something in-house?
“With more respondents viewing service providers as key business enablers, service prodivders are becoming purveyors of innovation and enabling transformation rather than just providing a source of price arbitrage”
Deloitte Global Outsourcing Survey
Cost Effective
The simplest solution may seem to be just hiring an internal development team. This seems simple enough right? Everyone has a dev team, why not us?!
Are you prepared to take on the responsibility for hiring project managers, designers, engineers, QA and whatever else is required to bring your vision to fruition? Probably not, and that’s okay. The vast majority of small to mid-sized companies benefit greatly from outsourcing simply as a cost-cutting effort. However the missing piece here is the strategy aspect, is your company ready to move forward with a thorough digital transformation without a consultant by your side?
Vast Range of Technology Experience
Teams at agencies like AndPlus are diverse in skillsets, thought processes and approaches to problem solving. With ~50 full time employees under one roof, collaboration and creativity are a mainstay of how we get things done.
The way teams are assembled depends on the project. Our Team Leads will always guide you in the right direction on technical matters, including the resources assigned to each project.
Wider Domain Experience
While some agencies can specialize in a particular industry vertical, the majority have an industry agnostic view of taking on projects. This can give your team a much wider breadth of experience in solving complex problems with code. Diversity in experience leads to creative approaches around potential roadblocks that nobody saw coming.
Established (and optimized!) Development Process
This one is a doozy, because we are immensely proud of our Agile+ process. A cookie cutter approach to managing your project is never going to be efficient. If you’re looking to build a rapid prototype that works well, looks great and is ready for prime-time, you need a meticulous approach.
For example. at AndPlus we have a team of senior engineers (Team Leads) that overlook every aspect of your project before the first line of code is written. They ensure that the correct technologies are being utilized (and in the correct ways!). Our Team Leads are experienced enough to be your outsourced CTO. They work directly with your team and ours to provide a future-proof product and efficient deployment.
The AndPlus team conducts thorough peer code review after every user story. This helps single out basic logic errors, implementation of requirements, and making sure the code is conforming to the appropriate style guidelines. These code reviews in tandem with our rigorous QA process guarantees that we never cut any corners when it comes to your app's development. No automation here, real humans reviewing your code.
What kind of things does a good strategic partner help with?
Strategy
By first developing an understanding of your business needs, challenges and objectives, a good partner will deliver unbiased perspectives and experienced counsel regarding digital product strategies and solution approaches designed to support your business objectives.
Design
Whether you have a new product or an existing one that needs a comprehensive design plan. A good development partner will help you craft a solution blueprint that achieves your business goals while delivering excellent results.
Development
The bulk of the work takes place in this phase, and naturally, this is where you'll spend the most time. A good software development partner works in time-boxed sprints (we do 2 weeks pretty consistently) to deliver iterations on your product regularly.
Delivery
Leveraging a diverse team of strategists, UX experts, technical leaders, project managers, software engineers and QA experts, a good development partner combines these people with the discipline of a refined process to deliver world-class technologies as a solution.
"While cost optimization is still a critically important criterion for outsourcing, it is no longer at the top of the list (nor even in the top five), since disruptive outsourcing, when executed well, can deliver competitive advantage by transforming the way organizations operate, and making them more agile, efficient, and effective. The advantages are obvious to respondents: approximately 84% of them have either initiated discussions,
conducted pilots, or have implemented at least some disruptive solutions."Deloitte Global Outsourcing Survey 2018
Ok fine, I get it, an agency sounds like the right path. How do I choose the correct team? Well we have an entire webinar with our Chief Business Officer talking about just that.
Choosing Software Partner | AndPlus Webinar
Worlds quickest webinar summary, it all boils down to these 5 steps.
- Prepare
- Define your business problem
- Build a business case
- Define your anticipated needs
- Acquire a basic development knowledge
- Search
- Use directories to your advantage, many agencies are listed on websites like Clutch.co (where we have 4.9 stars!)
- Google Advanced Search can help you narrow down your search for things like certain words/phrases, technologies, languages, regions etc.
- Networking, who have your colleagues worked with? Any references they could provide?
- Have a dialog, learn the right things!
- Schedule a meeting with your prospective partners
- Ask about: Dev methodology, technologies used, location of their team, testing process, lifecycle strategy, internal culture, pricing and legal terms.
- Choose your list of finalists
- Project manager contact
- Seek similarities
- Use an ‘Apples to Apples’ question list
- Ask for references
- Make your selection
- Who best aligns with your business needs?
What about off the shelf solutions?
We’ll be honest with you. In a lot of cases, an off-the-shelf solution is more than adequate for what an organization is trying to accomplish. This is totally fine if generalized software gets the job done for you, but some businesses require bloat-free, specialized pieces of software designed to get very specific tasks completed flawlessly.
The same question comes up regarding enterprise software systems: Do we build a custom software solution from scratch, or do we buy off-the-shelf software? If we decide on the latter, then how do we make it work for us? Is it even possible?
It’s important for a business to choose the software path carefully. Software can represent a major investment in time and money. Making the right choice can mean the difference between seeing a return on that investment and writing it off as a loss.
Ultimately, the choice of build or buy comes down to cost. For any major software investment, it pays to look at both options and to get multiple proposals for both COTS and custom solutions. Because a COTS solution may have a custom component to it, this option should be considered as well.
Some questions to ask when making the final decision include:
- For customizable off-the-shelf products, does the product architecture support version upgrades without impacting the custom code?
- Is the off-the-shelf solution a desktop application that needs to be installed on every machine?
- How secure is my data on this platform?
- What is each provider’s reputation for quality, service, and support?
- What is the time horizon for this solution? That is, how long do you expect to be using it? A shorter term implies a smaller investment is warranted.
- What is the total cost of ownership for each option, including licensing, setup and configuration, and ongoing maintenance and support?
Once you get through these questions, the path towards a choice should seem clearer. It that isn’t the case, we’re always around to chat.
How do I begin? (Requirements doc?)
A requirements document specifies the functionality of a software product. It could cover the entire software product, a specific module or set of modules, or new functionality to be added to an existing product.
Regardless of scope, the important thing about a requirements document is it’s limited to describing what the software should do, not how the software should do it. The “how” part is covered by software design documentation produced by developers or user interface designers and is often a result of our Product Map Sprint.
The requirements document has three primary audiences:
- Designers - Use the document for guidance in making design decisions
- Developers – Use the document for guidance in making development decisions
- Testers – Use the document to design test cases
It’s one thing to write the requirements appropriately. Far trickier is getting the “right” requirements to document in the first place. If you simply take everything the customer and users say at face value and try to create requirements out of it, the result may be a convoluted, confusing mess. Too often, new product owners don’t really know what they want or need, much less how to articulate it.
Successful requirements elicitation takes a willingness to ask uncomfortable questions. You need some domain knowledge of the business process and a fair amount of intuition. Much of the discussion should be about the process and the problem to be solved rather than specific software requirements. Often, you can avoid time spent on unnecessary software requirements.
Understanding MoSCoW Prioritization
I’ll try to keep this one simple. MoSCow is a prioritization method that allows you (and us!) to… well… prioritize features. Ok that was easy. Let’s break it down a little bit.
Mo - Must have: Non-negotiable product features or needs that must launch with the MVP
S - Should have: Important features that add value, but wouldn’t be the end of the world if the product launched without them 100% ready in their final form.
Co - Could have: It would be nice to have these little pieces. Maybe not right away but they’ll be important later on. If we have time left over we’ll get to a couple of these backlog items.
W - Will not have: I don’t feel the need to clarify this one any further. If you’d like me to break this one down, give us a call maybe?
nope not that moscow.
Easy enough right? Well, not always! Choosing the essential features to rapidly prototype and launch with the MVP isn’t always as straightforward as it may seem. Finding a strategic partner like AndPlus to guide you through building your roadmap is.. Well let’s just say it fits under the “Mo” part of MoSCoW.
Interested in working alongside the AndPlus team to get your product to market fast?
