Bottleneck、Pitfall、Hidden Issues and Deception

What is the biggest fear in outsourcing development?

Lack of confidence in the outsourcing company: How good is their technology? Can they achieve the desired results?

More specifically, how is the rendering speed of each page, the response speed after clicking, and whether the interaction makes the user feel comfortable?

These issues often arise in outsourced development services.

Bottleneck: Huge and uncontrollable communication costs

Both parties do not understand each other’s industry, thinking, operating methods, and even work habits, leading to inadequate understanding of the business. This can result in ineffective and inefficient communication due to weak willingness to communicate from both sides.

Solution:

1. Completely transparent project management:

From the first requirements communication meeting, use project management tools to track project progress. The entire process is transparent, visualized, and traceable, maximizing communication efficiency and avoiding wasting time on excuses.

2. Regular meetings:

This is an important means to ensure project progress, including milestone meetings, summaries of the previous phase, and plans for the next phase, ensuring the project advances according to the set goals and timelines.

3. Two-way feedback:

At the beginning of the project, we will ask relevant questions based on your requirements and confirm every detail with you. This process may take some of your time, but the more comprehensive and detailed the information you provide, the better our understanding will be, and the closer our output will be to your “perfect work.” In the mid-to-late stages of the project, based on mutual understanding and trust, we will use more efficient methods, such as prototypes, flowcharts, sequence diagrams, and mind maps, to answer your questions about the software’s presentation results.

4. No Casualness:

We try not to use various IM software for project communication, including but not limited to WhatsApp , iMessage, Telegram.These instant messaging software are mainly for communication, such as scheduling meeting times and locations, and emergency notifications. They are not suitable for project communication. The project communication process should be: first form a document, then communicate face-to-face or via conference call. Similarly, any requirements and issues you raise through various communication software will be organized into documents for processing and response. This ensures that all communications are traceable, avoiding information loss or misunderstanding.

Pitfall: Project management that the client “can see but can’t touch”

The two core goals of project management are quality and progress. Once the project officially starts, the client is often in a passive position in the project management process. During this period, the developer holds the right to speak, and project quality collapse and progress delays often occur.

Solution:

The characteristic of our working method is that we use the project management tool Redmine, which is completely open to the client.

Involving the client, transparent operations, can effectively ensure the quality and progress of the project. Our working method actively invites the client to supervise us. In our dictionary, there is no word for “slacking off.”

At the same time, the entire lifecycle of the project will be fully recorded in the project management software, from the project’s conception, every meeting, every milestone, every requirement point, to the project’s delivery, deployment, launch, and subsequent maintenance and upgrades. Everything is traceable, using visual workflows to reassure both parties and minimize communication costs.

Hidden Issues: Problems arising from post-maintenance and upgrades

After the project is officially delivered and launched, the subsequent work is more important but tedious and complex. Subsequent work is divided into two major modules: maintenance and upgrades. Maintenance work includes server stability, security issues, daily inspections, data backups, etc. As the number of users increases, new requirements often arise, requiring iterative upgrades.

Solution:

We have rich operation and maintenance experience. As developers, we have inherent advantages in project operation and maintenance and iterative upgrade work. If the client does not wish to continue cooperation, due to the previous good project management system, visualized and transparent working mechanism, the handover work will be very smooth. The succeeding team will receive a complete, clean, and easy-to-use project. We will also provide detailed documentation and training to ensure the new team can quickly get started and maintain project continuity and stability.

Deception: Over-exaggeration and over-commitment

After communicating with hundreds of clients, we found a common problem: almost all clients who need redevelopment have experienced over-commitment from development teams.

Solution:

Over-commitment is the only thing we cannot do. We are honest, diligent, serious, and genuinely want to do things well. We will not promise clients things we cannot do. We will give reasonable expectations and commitments based on actual situations and capabilities, ensuring the project can be completed on time and with quality.