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EmailAt companies of all sizes, product managers are increasingly working with development teams that are either partly or mostly located offshore. Usually at countries like India, China or countries in Eastern Europe.
Our own development team is distributed between the US and India. In this post, I’d like to share some tips our product management team has learned over time – on working effectively with our offshore development team.
(Please note that these tips are for working with your company’s development team that is located offshore, not outsourced teams).
Tips for Working Effectively with Offshore Development Teams
- Document in detail:
- When your development team is sitting in the next row of cubes, it’s okay to skimp on documentation – perhaps even preferable in some cases. But when working with offshore development teams, it is extremely important to document your requirements in detail. If anything, err on the side of too much detail.
- Practice agile techniques:
- Set up frequent deliverables (even if only for very rough prototypes). Then review the deliverables in a timely fashion and provide detailed feedback.
- Clearly define communication policy:
- Clearly define and agree upon how your product management team and your offshore development team will communicate. This includes:
- Communication medium: We’ve found the written medium to be much better – such as wikis, emails, etc.
- Frequency: How often the communication will take place.
- Time zone: Set up some overlapping time every day (at least 2 hours), when your product management team and your development team will both be at work. This is essential to avoid the time zone difference from becoming a liability.
- Over-communicate:
- After defining the communication policy as explained above, make sure to over-communicate. This will ensure that your requirements are not misinterpreted either due to lack of clarity or due to language issues.
- It’s better for product managers to take the lead in over-communicating, rather than wait for the development team to initiate the communication.
- Keep ESL-factor in mind:
- In writing requirements documents, and in your day-to-day communication – remember that for your development team English is a second language (ESL).
- Use simple language, short sentences and avoid slang. Most of all, be patient – sometimes you may have to explain the same thing N times. Remember – their grasp of English is far better than your grasp of their language! 🙂
- Give credit when credit is due:
- When a member of your offshore dev team does a good job, go out of your way to compliment them – both privately and publicly. This is an effective technique to build strong relationships over time – especially since you can’t do weekly lunches or happy hours with them!
- Try to do this as often as you can – but always be sincere and specific in your compliments.
- Make them feel part of the team:
- Even with the advent of the latest communication tools, your development team is sitting thousands of miles away. This creates a feeling of “not being a part of the team”. Devise ways to make them feel a valued part of your team.
We’ve found these 7 tips very helpful in working effectively with our offshore development team.
FYI: We use our own software (Accompa) to document our requirements and collaborate closely with our offshore development team. If you’d like to see whether our software can help your team too – check out the product tour or request free trial.
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