How do you motivate an offshore development team?

What Is ODC – Offshore Development Center?

An ODC (Offshore Development Center) is a software development center located in another country that can help reduce the in-house cost and workload significantly. Offshore development centers are usually located in India, China, the Philippines and Vietnam where the cost of living is much lower. Besides, those countries also have political stability and available resources that are suitable for setting up and integration process of an ODC.

What is the difference between onsite and offshore team?

Onsite (or onshore) is where all team members work from the same office in the same country while offshore is where all team members work from an office in another country/continent with several differences in time and culture.

How do you motivate an offshore team?

Working with ODC (Offshore Development Center) model, you will be playing the main management role as a team leader collaborating harmoniously with the project manager provided by the vendor. It is a chance for you to practice and get your leadership to shine. Guidance, solution, vision, teamwork, direction, strategy, communication and goal are all the things you will need to convey directly to the team, in order to develop the team as well as achieve your target at the same time.

Don’t Micromanage Them

Nobody likes to be micromanaged. It is also hard to scale your development team if you can’t empower them and trust them to do the work that needs to be done. It is important that your offshore team has a strong senior developer that can act as a team lead.

If you are having problems getting things done properly, consider if your offshore team lacks senior-level leadership. Many companies make the mistake of just trying to hire a bunch of cheap developers.

It is in the best interest of you and your offshore partner both to ensure that your offshore team can be self-managing and successful. Make sure you have the right mix of senior developers and potentially a project manager.

Treat Them Like Your Team, Not an Offshore Team

One of the biggest mistakes is creating us vs them mentality. Don’t keep your offshore team at arm’s length. Treat them like they are part of your team, they just happen to work remotely.

Give them Real Work To Do

Just because you can find offshore developers for $17 an hour, that doesn’t mean you need to only give them donkey work to do. They make $17 an hour because of the cost of living where they live, not because they are junior developers. Let their talents bloom and reward them adequately.

Establish a relationship with them

Include them in all communication — don’t leave them in the dark. Include them in company and team meetings. Meet with them regularly online and even in person. Meet with the teams in person so that you know what they want and what motivates them.

Let them know your goals and objectives

Build mutual trust with your offshore team. Specify your requirements, KPIs and metrics as well as your long term business.

Keep Their Work Queue Full, Including a “B” Task

There will be many times when your offshore team may get stuck and need help from someone else. The last thing you want to do is have them get stuck and get nothing accomplished.

There are countless reasons that developers get stuck in the middle of their work. From the weird compilation, issues check-in by someone else, business logic questions, lack of clear requirements, etc.

We suggest always having multiple work items in their queue so if they get stuck, they have someone else can work on. If they get stuck on their “A” task, make sure they have a “B” or “C” priority item they can work on in the meantime.

Respect their time

The time zone between your country and the offshore team could be a huge difference. For example, in Vietnam, it is around 12 hours different from the US time zone. That means they work while you’re sleeping and vice versa. Respect their time, know which hours are their working hours so you won’t rush or expect intermediate answers from your offshore team.

Respect their culture

If you place your offshore development center in Asian countries such as India, China, the Philippines, or Vietnam, remember that their culture is a lot different from customs and traditions. Plan ahead of religious holidays and celebrations that may delay the time of delivery.

About InApps Technology

Located in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, InApps Technology provides offshore software development services to help clients increase their software development capacity and efficiently turn their ideas into working products. Dedicated Software Development Team of experienced engineers is at your service to design and develop high-quality technical solutions of any level of complexity.

Here are some reasons why clients choose us as their offshore software development company in Vietnam:

• Competitive Hourly Cost
• Clear delivery management and visibility to service metrics
• Transparency and Predictability. 
• Close Collaboration. 
• Flexible Team Structure.
• Latest Development Methodologies: Agile, Scrum, Extreme Programming (XP) and Test Driven Development (TDD)