Best Tools For Working With An Offshore Software Development Partner

When it comes to making offshore software development a success and building a productive working relationship with a technical partner, it’s essential the foundations are implemented as soon as possible. In fact, it could be argued the infrastructure both you and your partner will work within will dictate your success just as much as the underlying chemistry behind the relationship. 

With this in mind, you need to ensure you have the right tools to coordinate the partnership, communicate effectively and work together cohesively. Without access to these tools, you’ll likely struggle to harmonise with your partner and experience challenges delivering your project on time, within budget and to the quality you’re aiming for. 

From our extensive experience, the very best tools help optimise everything from project organisation and delivery, to productivity, and are often the foundation for a successful offshore software development project.

In this blog, we offer our recommendations for the very best tools you should consider to optimise your offshore software development initiative. 

Conference Software Tool - Slack 

As one of the most common tools used by remote teams, Slack often lays the groundwork for a productive offshore software development relationship. Offering an easy-to-use digital office, Slack allows for quick and simple communication, and is regularly used for coordinating projects and delivering feedback in real-time. 

Also allowing for fast room creation, simple time zone management, custom bot usage and easy file sharing, Slack provides the key fundamentals needed to develop fluid and harmonious real-time communication. 

Communication is the cornerstone of a successful remote relationship and Slack has all the key features needed to ensure the remote team feel connected. This closeness combined with the platform’s ability to integrate with a wide variety of add-ons means that the tool can be customised for purpose, ensuring optimal value in every project. 

Video Conferencing Tool - Zoom 

Although the technology has majorly evolved in a short space of time, video conferencing often remains a relatively pot-luck experience. Some days it’ll work, others you can’t even get audio, let alone visual. Zoom puts the majority of these challenges firmly in the past. Offering a reliable and high-quality video conferencing experience, Zoom is the perfect tool for remote teams and clients to stay in touch. 

Features like ‘Gallery View’ also separate Zoom from the rest, letting everyone within the chat see all video feeds at once. This creates that all important cohesiveness that sits at the heart of the very best remote relationships.  

Being able to communicate as and when required is a critical component of a successful long distance working relationship, and so Zoom’s reliable video offering is a critical piece of the puzzle. 

Design Collaboration Tool - Invision

When multiple stakeholders are involved in managing design and visuals, it’s essential to have a tool that allows for quick & simple feedback and discussion - Invision offers all this and more. 

In the world of design, iteration is everything. Visual projects often require multiple versions before they meet the objective and so having a tool that allows for easy improvements, communication and simultaneous working is critical, for both the quality of the product and efficiency in delivery.  

Invision is perfect for offshore software development projects as it allows both sides to collaborate in real-time and helps designers effectively work together to achieve the common objective. 

Project Management Tool - Monday.com 

Coordinating the delivery of a project delivered by a remote team can be challenging. With so many moving parts in play and dependencies involved, it can be difficult to manage. A project management tool like Monday.com can help. 

Managing Workloads

Providing visibility of individual and team workloads, Monday.com helps to manage resource allocation and identify under/over utilisation. With this information, key stakeholders on both sides of the partnership can identify potential bottlenecks and opportunities. This is integral when it comes to utilising and managing remote teams. Understanding their capacity at a granular level helps to identify what they can handle and deliver. 

Managing Timelines

Monday.com automates timeline creation, showing projects in a timeline format at the touch of a button. This not only improves efficiency by reducing management admin, but allows for easy visibility of the tasks planned and helps identify clashes, challenges or inefficiencies that may appear.  

Offering an easy-to-use visual UI, clear concise timelines and a suite of organisational tools, Monday.com can assist all stakeholders involved by improving the management and visibility of key information. This helps to coordinate critical workloads, overcome issues before they develop into high-level problems and maintain efficiency throughout project delivery. 

Task Management Tool - Jira 

Offering total customisation, Jira is the perfect task management tool for offshore software development projects. Created primarily for developers, Jira allows for the management of different tasks through a pre-built workflow that keeps all stakeholders informed in real-time. 

With a focus on enabling collaboration, Jira also provides formatted commenting, deep sharing features and a simple tagging system, allowing for easy task-based communication. 

With the right tools at your disposal, you’ll be able to develop a remote working relationship that is not only productive, but cohesive and efficient at every stage of delivery. This will help you get the most out of your offshore software development project and maximise the value for all involved.

Projects without the right tools often struggle to get off the ground and in many cases cause unnecessary tension, as the infrastructure isn’t in place to support an effective remote working relationship. 

Remember, tools are just as important as talent, you can’t develop a product with one or the other, you need both in order to see the quality of results you’re looking for.