Customer Experience, Nearshore, Outsourced Engineering Team
With the continuous rise of smart technology, it is only natural for company owners and managers to find ways of incorporating software development into their respective businesses. After all, software engineering is the core foundation of the web and mobile apps that connect and cultivate the modern customer’s loyalty to the brand.
Why outsource your software development projects
Although US businesses have the advantage of operating in the tech capital of the world, the majority of US companies choose to outsource software development to another country. Outsourcing saves time and effort in finding and hiring a professional that can do the job well. It is also likely to be more cost-effective. In 2015, more than 470,000 IT jobs were outsourced from the US to other countries such as Mexico, India, and Ukraine.
Aside from price and quality, one must also consider the cultural compatibility of the outsourcing firm to your business process or model. Business cultural compatibility can help break several barriers (e.g. language) that usually accompany cross-border associations.
Cultural compatibility: Which one matches your business?
If you are thinking of outsourcing software development to either Mexico, India, or Ukraine, here are the things you need to know:
Mexico
1. Their business culture is heavily influenced by the US
A large number of US multi-national companies operating in the country might have something to do with how Mexico structures its business models and processes. Unlike their American counterparts, however, Mexicans tend to favor personal relationships rather than individual skills. This means you need to personally gain their trust first before they will allow you to conduct significant business with them.
2. Their management style is paternalistic
Managers tend to treat subordinates like family. Nevertheless, this does not mean they cannot impose severe punishment towards a wayward employee. They just like to combine an authoritative approach with certain familial warmth. This creates a deep sense of loyalty between the manager and the employees.
3. Business meetings in Mexico present an opportunity to exchange information and free-flow ideas
If you are the type of person to strictly follow the agenda in a business meeting, you might feel frustrated in a meeting with a Mexican business partner. On the bright side, you’ll go home teeming with excellent ideas to keep your business ahead of the curve. The more active and animated a Mexican is in a meeting, the more you are guaranteed that he/she is committed to doing good business with you.
India
4. They are strongly guided by religious and cultural beliefs
As with most countries in Asia, religion and tradition play a big part in doing business in India. For example, you should never use your left hand to shake hands or offer/accept things, as they believe that the left hand is unclean.
5. Their business core value is family-oriented
Indians are strongly family- and community-oriented. One must first establish a personal connection before they will be open to do business with you. Meetings would often begin with personal questions about each other’s families. It is also expected that business partners spend a lot of time interacting through dinners and social clubs to build good relationships with each other.
6. Regular contacts and face-to-face meetings are the keys to a fruitful business relationship in India
Building personal relationships is important when conducting business in India. Unfortunately, you can’t build a good personal relationship purely by phone or email. You need to take frequent trips and meet face-to-face with your Indian counterpart if you want to ensure the success of your business collaboration.
Ukraine
7. Ukrainians have a flexible concept of work hours
In Ukraine, the concept of time is directly linked to the person’s hierarchical status in the office. A manager may arrive five to 20 minutes later than expected. Even with appointments made in advance, it is considered polite to call a day to confirm the actual meeting.
8. Ukraine acknowledges both personal relationships and individual skills when hiring new people
While people with personal connections to managers might have a slight edge during the hiring process, Ukraine’s business culture compels decision-makers to also put the individual’s skills and expertise into consideration. They are known to express their delight and/or disappointment openly, regardless of whether it is a personal or professional relationship.
9. Ukrainians are masters in multi-tasking
If your Ukrainian counterpart starts to take phone calls or read emails in the middle of a conversation or a meeting, don’t be offended. They are not trying to be rude, but they are trying to show how efficient they are in their work by doing multiple things at the same time.
10. Whether it’s Mexico, India, or Ukraine, it is advisable to schedule a meeting coinciding with lunch breaks.
Lunch break is already a lengthy affair, so it is also the best time to discuss business concerns. It does not hurt that there is a warm, hearty meal in front of everyone to improve the mood. Lunch meetings are the best way to establish camaraderie and know your business partner better both professionally and personally.
Looking for a suitable software development company?
Traveling halfway across the globe to outsource your software development project can be a hassle. To avoid this, choose us, our development centers are located in Morelia, Michoacan, Mexico.
With us, you don’t have to worry about travel expenses or managing fast-moving projects as you’ll be able to collaborate with Mexico-based team members in real time. This is the true agility of nearshore software development. Contact us now and experience better cultural compatibility and alignment in your business.
Customer Experience, Outsourced Engineering Team, Successful Outsourcing
No matter who you are and what culture you were raised in, hearing the word “no” can be downright devastating. After all, the word is commonly associated with utter failure and defeat. There are various reasons why people say ”no” to you. However, your words and actions after the rejection can make a world of difference, especially in the business field.
What “no” really means
Most entrepreneurs dread getting a negative answer. It does not matter whether the rejection comes from a supplier, business partner, or client.
Just imagine: if saying or hearing the word “no” can cause great conflicts within a workplace, how much more damage can it do when it is used in a business deal between different cultures? People who don’t share the same language, social, and economic backgrounds are sometimes bound to misunderstand each other.
However, “no” can mean differently in each culture. While it can initially be perceived as a negative response, it may also just be an opening for a new idea or starting point. In this case, cultural competence becomes the key to handling “no,” regardless of where it comes from.
How different cultures handle rejection
Modern technological advancements have made it possible for entrepreneurs to reach potential clients and business partners across the globe. Indeed, it is very rare to find a workplace that is not highly diversified as a result of this globalization.
However, this cultural diversity in a workplace can be a source of conflict among the employees and the managers. This is especially true if there is persistent resistance to accommodate certain values and beliefs of other cultures.
Nevertheless, being aware of the different cultures is not enough to thrive in the world of business. It is also essential to understand where each culture is coming from. Here are some of the most common cultures that you might see in the workplace.
Americans
Americans tend to be straightforward and speak their minds directly. They prefer the discussions to be straight to the point. They also prefer to speak directly to all parties involved rather than ask a third party to send the message for them.
For this reason, whenever an American hears the word “no,” he or she is keen to hear the exact reasons for the rejection. For them, it is quite usual to dish out and hears both positive and negative feedback since these appeals to their high sense of individualism. This is not to say that Americans are not afraid of confrontations. They just tend to be more vocal about their thoughts and feelings.
Indians
With approximately 4.8 million people in the workforce, India holds the second largest number of workers in the world, there is a big chance that you will meet more than one Indian colleague in the workplace.
Since India is composed of different cultures, languages, and religions, it can be difficult to find the right approach in business dealings. For the most part, having a flexible approach works when interacting with an Indian colleague in the workplace.
However, Indians place a high value on respecting authority figures in the office. For example, it is considered rude to greet a younger colleague first before a senior one. It is also essential to appropriately address people by their respective titles (e.g., Doctor, Professor, etc.)
Like workers from other Asian countries, Indians avoid getting into verbal confrontations with their colleagues. As a result, the way they communicate can be frustrating, especially when they are conversing with a person from a different culture (i.e., Americans). Indians prefer indirect or circular communication. More than verbal, there is a need to watch out for gestures, facial expressions, and other cues to understand what they truly mean.
For them, the phrases “I understand,” “Maybe we can try that,” or “Yes, but…” may not exactly mean that they are agreeing with your idea or suggestion. However, directly disagreeing or saying “no” can be perceived as downright impolite or shameful. Thus, when they are in the receiving end of a direct rejection, they tend to take offense and get more critical about themselves.
Mexicans
In terms of cultural competence, Mexicans are right on top of the food chain. Due to their large numbers and relatively young age (compared to other employees in an ordinary American company), they are more accepting of any cultural shift in the workplace.
Thus, the way they handle rejections can be considered as a curious mix between the American and the Asian approaches. While they are not shy in accepting both positive and negative feedback, they are wary of public confrontations.
Hence, unlike their American counterparts who have no problem airing their grievances in an open forum, Mexicans might take offense if you reject them openly in front of their co-workers. In this case, the best way to give a rejection or constructive criticism to a Mexican employee is to isolate them from the pack and talk to them privately.
Get Scio
Any business person should know that hearing the word “no” is not the endgame as each culture takes rejection differently. Our technical and industry expertise is only compounded by our highly skilled, dynamic, and diverse culture that understands how to handle and work around that initial “no” from a client. Need to develop products that would get instant approval from clients around the globe? Contact us, and get to know some of the Top Houston Software Developers
Agile Methodology, Customer Experience, Mobile, Nearshore, Outsourced Engineering Team, Product Development, Technologies
When building any kind of company, there are steps you must take that will do the most to ensure your success. These steps are especially lucrative when building a company that works for other companies such as the ever-growing industry of software-as-a-service. It may be difficult to know on your own what are some of the ways you can ensure success in your software service company. To make it simpler for you, we have compiled a couple of the ways that you can see to it that your company has the best shot of success.
Keep it simple
Because software is often self-serve it is best to keep it simple and easy to use considering the majority of business owners aren’t computer geniuses. Making it more user-friendly will mean that more people will want to use your software for their business. Keep it simple, tidy, and user-friendly.
Never stop improving
O
ne way that a lot of software service companies fail is that they become complacent with their software. A good software service company listens to their customers and continuously improves and updates its product to make it work even better and smoother. Monitoring what the consumer is saying allows the software service company to cut out unnecessary functionality which ties into the “Keep it simple” rule.
Offer several different packages
You should always have more than one package available where the first and lowest functioning one is basically free. From there you can increase the price per software based on customer needs, usability, willingness to pay, and ROI.
Display a path to profitability
Oftentimes a company will not be profitable simply because they invest their resources to sustain growth. Good service software companies must show that they plan to be profitable in the next few years and that they have a path to profitability. The best way for a company to achieve this is to hit profitability every couple of years before reinvesting.
Offer the perfect mix of services
Offering the right amount of services can be difficult for a company but it is highly lucrative to the success of a said company. On one hand, they increase revenue and reduce churn rates whereas on the other hand they reduce margin and increase deployment time and cost of sales.
Commit to the success of your customer
One of the most important things to remember when growing a software service company is to sign new customers as well as commit to grow and secure its recurring revenue from previously signed customers. To accomplish this, the company must be monitoring its customer’s usage levels continuously as well as send them customer satisfaction surveys and product updates among other things.
These are just a few of the major points to remember when you are trying to build a successful and profitable software service company. Along with these, you will find that you discover things that work for your company and your specific product and what does not.
Are you ready to develop your App?
Click here and schedule a meeting
Scio provides end-to-end engineering services in a collaborative partnership to ensure that your team is an integral part of the solutions you require. We can offer a wide range of skills to make up a team that you can depend on – and work with directly. And when you need something more – we’re flexible. From helping to assess your needs to developing, implementing and maintaining solutions, we can offer as much or as little help as you need. Our teams can work with you virtually or on your site – but most companies need some type of combination of the two and we’re more than happy to find that blend too. If you think that sounds interesting – Contact Us. We’re ready.
Agile Methodology, Nearshore, Outsourced Engineering Team
Software development projects use different types of software development life cycle (SDLC) methodologies, depending on their nature and requirements. They basically define the way that software development work is organized.
The two main approaches are the traditional or waterfall method and the agile software development method. How are they different from each other and which one should you choose for your project?
First, we want to define each methodology:
According to Wikipedia «the traditional methodology or waterfall is a sequential development approach, in which development is seen as flowing steadily downwards through several phases»
On the other hand, Agile methodology is defined as a way of building software through incremental, iterative work cadences, known as sprints. «The highest priority is to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of valuable software» – Agile Manifesto
Comparison between Agile and Traditional Software Development Methodologies
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Software Development Lifecycles
One main difference between the traditional and agile methodologies is the sequence of the phases in which the software development project is completed.
The traditional method uses a linear approach where the stages of the software development process must be completed in sequential order. This means that a stage must be completed before the next one begins. These stages usually comprise the following:
- Requirements gathering and documentation
- System design
- Code and unit testing
- System testing
- User acceptance testing
- Bug fixes
- Product delivery
On the other hand, the agile methodology uses an iterative and team-based approach. Its main objective is to quickly deliver the application with complete and functional components. Instead of completing the software development tasks in sequence, they are completed in sprints that run from around 1 to 4 weeks and where a list of deliverables is completed in each sprint. The tasks that do not get completed within the sprint are then reprioritized and included in future sprints. This also means that the different stages of the software development life cycle can be revisited as needed.
The agile software development method uses an iterative and team-based approach
The typical agile development lifecycle involves the following phases:
- Requirements
- Plan
- Design
- Develop
- Release
- Track and Monitor
With the traditional method, the details of the entire project have been visualized and defined before the project starts. In contrast, the agile methodology allows for more flexibility in that changes can more easily be made even after the project starts.
It is best employed if the scope of the project cannot be clearly defined in advance. This also means that making unplanned software development changes with the traditional method is costlier than with agile.
Customers are highly involved in the early stages of the software development process when employing the traditional methodology. More specifically, their input is needed during the requirements gathering phase, as they must provide a detailed description of what their requirements are with regards to the software application to be developed and how they envision it to function.
However, they have limited involvement after the software development process starts, aside from attending status meetings, doing reviews, and providing approvals. They usually get to see the product in its entirety after a software development life cycle is completed.
The agile software development method requires more customer involvement
In contrast, the customers are highly involved in every stage when employing the agile development process. They can review the application at every phase and make suggestions for improvement.
As a result, the customers are more engaged in the entire software development process, in turn ensuring that they are satisfied with the finished product.
The traditional method has more formal documentation and review process than the agile approach. Each phase of the development process is properly documented and reviewed when using the traditional approach.
On the other hand, due to the quick delivery time required with the agile method, changes are usually made directly on the code, with the developers just adding comments and annotations. This doesn’t mean that documentation is not an important part of agile software development projects.
Documentation in agile is typically seen as a strategic part of the development process, where all that is written has a purpose. It is a simplified document with executable specifications and stable concepts.
Which software development method should you choose?
When choosing the methodology most suitable for your software development project, some of the things you should consider are:
- The speed of completion.
- The size of the system.
- The level of collaboration and interaction that is possible among the software development team members.
In particular, if you need to quickly release a basic product that you can later build on and add more features too, then the agile methodology may be more appropriate for your project. It works best if you have a startup, which means that you have limited resources but need a basic software application to get your business up and running. Likewise, this approach is suitable for small-to-medium-sized software applications.
On the other hand, the traditional method is better suited for projects in large enterprises where the specifications and requirements must be clearly defined before the project commences. Although the project may be divided into smaller components, each of which is developed with the agile approach, this comes with the risk that the individual components may not be compatible with each other once they are integrated to complete the final product.
Finally, the agile software development method requires a high level of collaboration among the stakeholders involved where each stakeholder must be readily available for input or feedback. In this regard, if you’re working with various groups (software developers, vendors, testers, customers, and others) that do not work in a single physical location or that may have limited availability, then the traditional approach may be the better option for you.
Agile vs Traditional
Both traditional and agile software development methods have their own advantages and disadvantages.
However, whenever feasible, the agile approach should be considered, as it provides more benefits, especially for startups. It enables a complete functional software application to be released faster. It is also more cost-effective, as making changes is less costly than with the traditional approach. Budgets can also be determined on a per-sprint rather than a per-project basis.
Moreover, because the customer is highly involved and changes are constantly made to the application, a higher quality of work is achieved.
With the use of technologies such as webcams, VoIP, and others, a high level of interaction is still possible even among remote teams. In this regard, this collaborative nature of agile fosters trusts between the customer and the software development team.
In summary, the software development method most appropriate for your project will depend on factors such as schedule, cost, quality, and the other resources available to the project. As such, it should be the first decision that you and your software development team make.
By organizing the different stages of your project efficiently, you can better ensure its successful completion — that is, a project that is developed on time, within budget, and where the customers are happy.
Want to start building your next software idea? Want to give it a shot on the Agile methodology? Contact us we have been working with this methodology for more than 8 years now. So, let us know how we can be helpful to you. We love to help!
Nearshore, Outsourced Engineering Team
Offshore outsourcing or offshoring, in short, refers to hiring a third party company that operates in another country to take care of some business operations or services for you. It is a business strategy to lower business costs without sacrificing the quality of the company’s output.
Some of the biggest companies in the world resort to offshoring. Examples include Apple, Cisco, Ford, and more. Offshore outsourcing is mainly employed in the customer service and manufacturing industries.
The effectiveness of this strategy has been proven for many years. However, contracting another company in another country to accomplish daily operations for your business has its risks.
Offshoring is all about cost-effectiveness and expanding companies or business operations on a global scale, but to better understand it, you should also be aware of its disadvantages.
Offshoring Risk #1: Poor data/IP security
A company or business’ data or IP might not be well secured, which may result in data loss or leaks. There are even some incidents of data theft, which may result in the business’ collapse.
Offshoring Risk #2: Hidden Costs
There are several cases where offshoring clients are taken by surprise by sudden and extra fees that were never part of the initial agreement. This is why most offshoring companies today present fixed rates.
Offshoring Risk #3: Poor Communication
One of the biggest concerns in offshoring is the communication barrier, given that it involves contracting a company in another country where English may not be the primary language. Although English is the main language used among offshore companies, their level of proficiency may not always allow for excellent communication between them and the offshoring company.
Offshoring Risk #4: Subpar Employee Management
Offshoring clients are worried about the offshore company’s employee management style and their recruitment process, which are critical to ensuring the competency of the employees they hire. Working with a service provider that’s located thousands of miles away makes it hard to monitor work productivity due to lack of supervision.
Offshoring Risk #5: Lack of Proper Work Dissemination
Offshoring is not about employees multitasking; it is about hiring several employees and making sure those employees are efficient in their job responsibilities. However, progress may be impeded by poor work distribution.
Offshoring Risk #6: Culture-Barrier
Just like with the communication barrier, failure to understand and embrace different cultures may lead to inadequate progress. It may also prevent the client company and the offshore service provider from establishing a harmonious relationship.
Offshoring Risk #7: Lack of Technological Advancement and Skills
Many offshoring clients are looking to outsource to a company that’s able to provide extensive and dynamic technological capabilities. However, technological advancements in many countries are not the same. This is an essential matter because most of the advanced countries in the world like the US, UK, and Australia actively outsource their work to offshore service providers. Many of them have high standards when it comes to technology; thus, outsourcing work to a firm that’s unable to meet those standards will only slow down their business operation.
Offshoring Risk #8: Quality Problems
Offshoring appeals to businesses because of the lower labor costs, which enable them to hire two or three employees for the price of one. However, quality work is not always guaranteed when it comes to offshoring. This problem may arise due to inexperienced employees, poor team management, inability to understand the requirements, and more.
Offshoring Risk #9: High Turnover Rate
The high turnover rates in offshore companies can have an adverse effect on the business as this can mean the loss of knowledge and the need for retraining or knowledge transfer, which can take time and slow down a project’s progress.
Offshoring Risk #10: Legal Problems
Offshoring clients are required to abide by the different set of rules or laws in another country. As such, it is important to iron out all the terms and conditions before hiring an offshore service provider.
Offshore Outsourcing Today
Despite these risks or disadvantages, hundreds of companies and businesses still outsource their services to providers all over the world, as they are able to lower the risks with innovative and strategic methods. Offshore service providers are taking the necessary steps and measures to address the challenges that come with this type of work arrangement, as well as to minimize their impact.
Outsourcing your software development needs would offer a lot of benefits to your business, but it will also come with various disadvantages. As such, it is important for you to weigh your options carefully.
Alternatively, you may want to consider employing the services of a nearshore company, and in the process reduce the problems that cultural, language and time zone differences bring about.
We are a nearshore company with a team of experienced and skilled software developers who can help you to bring your software development projects to life. Talk to us today!
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Customer Experience, Featured, Outsourced Engineering Team, Product Development, Project Management
Background
Before we discuss this subject – let’s reach a common understanding of what we mean by Soft Skills for Software Development Teams. Developing custom software requires a clear understanding of what the client needs to accomplish with the finished product. If you work in application development, you are aware that often this is a subject the client is not fully settled on when development begins, even if they have planned extensively. In fact, if the client believes they have all the bases covered in their application requirements, it is wise to be very careful and ensure they have the ability to be flexible at both a product and contract level. We all know that things will change as the product is realized and new opportunities present themselves. We also know that unexpected issues will come up during the project and the longer and more complex the project – the higher the risk will be. What we don’t know is how much change the project will need to be successful as envisioned and if that will be acceptable to the client. Realizing a product successfully requires that everyone on the development team is able to see more than the task that is in front of them and is enabled, personally and professionally, to help shape the outcomes. Without that, they are just following specifications in detail, not contributing their experience and insight fully and that can mean that things will go off the rails before anyone can pull them back. For developers to effectively provide the insight and experience they have to the project – they need to be able to use a range of soft skills.
On the other hand, no one can expect all or even some software developers to be business consultants, but in most cases, the same skills we expect our business consultants to have, can make all the difference when they are applied to the project from within the development team.
At a high level – what are these skills? Communication, negotiation, problem solving (creativity), and strategic thinking, but – within the context of the development team and its role in the project. There is a larger, more specific view of soft skills, but we will get to that later.
Scio Development Center, Morelia, Mexico
The team context is critical. If the development team cannot come together to support a concept or conclusion that could be advantageous to the project, it has a near zero chance of moving forward, no matter how valuable it may be. This doesn’t discount the visionary individual who sees the opportunity for change, it simply means that before the idea can move forward – the individual needs to exercise their soft skills to bring their team on board as a first step. And if the team does not feel enabled to exercise their creativity and insight, their soft skills for the concept, it will never happen.
Another common misconception is that roles like Project Manager and operations like communication are in themselves soft skills. Both areas benefit from soft skills greatly, but being a good project manager has more to do with how the role is defined than anything else. In larger teams, where the project manager is more of an administrator and deliverable coordinator, more of the work is defined by procedures, checklists, and project plan maintenance than soft skills, although certainly if the plans go wrong, negotiation becomes key. In these larger scenarios, communication also becomes bound up in processes and notification cycles that are often automated, if not run by assistants and procedures. In smaller agile teams, like we use at Scio for agile software development, soft skills are always important because there are fewer intermediaries and roles between the client and the development team. In general, while procedures certainly exist, they are more flexible and can be changed to fit the context of the project quickly. In these situations, there is little to no buffer between the development team and the key stakeholders on the client team. The better the members of the team are at leveraging soft skills, the better off the whole project will be. Smaller teams have to be creative, able to communicate their ideas and support them with analysis and strategy, and finally negotiate a path to a better outcome.
Is there a process under it all?
There is a process that ties together all soft skills that – when it is done right – makes all the difference. It is the process a team or individual uses to arrive at a conclusion for presentation, negotiation, and hopefully, acceptance. It is basically the same system a business analyst uses to present findings, but it needs to rely more on arriving at the conclusion as something everyone in the team can agree to and support. I bring this up because although all soft skills can be used by themselves, it is easier to see the value if you put them in the context of developing a proposal for a change in a project.
Considering the steps
- Gather Information
- Open, contextual questions delivered with empathy. As you gather information, conversations and the questions in them need to be developed within the context of the organization and with an understanding (empathy) for the people you are talking to. The communication soft skill of developing questions to gather information and delivering them with empathy has considerable value and too often ignored. Not using it properly results in few useful answers («yes» and «no» answers don’t give you any context) and little understanding of underlying drivers.
- Research – Of course, the skill of analyzing sources is critical, but so is using the team and peers as resources in research. They will bring different points of view and experience that can be expose additional lines of discussion.
- Analyze
- Document Scenario – Analysis must be based on the scenario under consideration and it must be documented clearly and agreed on by the team.
- Record Analysis – The analysis, under the scenario, needs to be referenced to the research and interviews
- Team Inclusion – Again, the team and any peers consulted need to be pulled into the analysis through review and discussion to ensure they understand what was considered before the conclusions were reached
- Develop Conclusions
- Attach to research and analysis – by the time you reach the conclusions, you should be able to draw clear lines between the research, the analysis and the proposed conclusion. Referencing back to those areas is key to achieving a collaborative conclusion.
- Team Inclusion – Of course, if the team is going to support the proposal, they have to understand the conclusions and how they were reached.
- Reassess
- Record Current Context – Document the current scenario and how it has changed.
- Cycle Back through the steps and document, changing as needed and adding new conclusions.
The process of developing proposals will use all the general skills above and if we get more granular, some more as well. Ultimately, they are the skills teams need to be successful and clients need to make decisions and gain confidence in their development team. But, the development team should not wait until the problem that needs to be solved is so big that it takes days and reams of paper to present. At that point, it is too late for the team to intervene because of project timelines and pressures. If problems are recognized early and conclusions are well-documented, they should be able to be presented in a short PowerPoint presentation. That is a much more realistic target for a development team if they can leverage their soft skills effectively.
A more comprehensive list of soft skills for Software Development Teams?
We’re not going to go into detail with the list we use of soft skills for our team training – but it is a good look at what we find useful to bring development team members to a level that improves their ability to add value to a project from their experience and insight:
–Thought Skills
- Associative Thinking (Connect the Dots)
- Analytical Participation
- Effective Questioning & Participation
–Team Skills
- Cultural Integration
- Collaboration & Coordination
- Key Stakeholder(s) Identification, expectations, Concerns
- Teamwork & Success (also a personal skill)
–Personal Skills
- Time Management (also a team skill)
- Always Learning, Improving
- Self-Confidence, Interpersonal Skills
These areas, laid against the normal team analysis, project management and delivery skills required for software development, bring a better experience for clients and higher job satisfaction for our team members. But with that understanding of the «why» behind a focus on soft skill development, the biggest barriers must also be understood:
- Soft skills do not come easily, especially in the areas of communication, collaboration and negotiation. Everyone must practice, fail, reassess, and continue the cycle to improve self-confidence and the interpersonal skills that are so important.
- Soft skills take time to develop and in the end, have to come from hands-on experience. One class, one try, does not suffice for training. The ball needs to be passed around so that everyone can get time to gain the confidence necessary. It is like driving a car – you cannot watch a series of videos on Youtube and expect to drive a car properly. You need to get into an actual car and feel what happens as you are moving along to learn and grow.
How can you get value out of soft skills?
As a software developer, can you remember situations where you saw a solution to a problem that you couldn’t properly communicate to your team or client? If you have any experience, you have. Taking some time to research, experiment, make mistakes, ask someone to mentor you in soft skills, can make all the difference. If you have mastered some soft skills, mentor others by doing – don’t wait for them to ask.
As a client, look for ways to support your team and enable them to leverage their soft skills. There is no question we are all made smarter by working together and it lowers the burden on you and your team. You can’t expect all ideas from y0ur development team to be acceptable – but the richness possible from an inclusive, collaborative environment can increase your chances of success and decrease your risk considerably.
As we move forward to achieve better outcomes and a more positive customer experience – custom software development must continue to look for opportunities to lower risk and achieve better outcomes. Development teams can act more as partners in product development and success and less as commodity labor. It is a vision we need to continue to work on – and realize – one person, one team, one project at a time.
