How can I get near-to-precise cost and time estimates for my software project? 

Software development businesses recognize that their potential clients want complete control over their money, the ability to monitor risks and compute the most precise return on investment to justify their investments. Consider these two crucial points before requesting a software project estimate:

Be clear about your requirements and the end-product before turning to the software vendor. To get, you must first give. You should provide relevant information to your software vendor if you want exact quotes for your software development project. Estimating time and cost is simple if the client is well aware of your requirements. The client provides the appropriate technical documentation or an SOW paper; the software vendor thoroughly examines these papers and comes up with either comments and questions or time and cost estimates.

Before hiring a software development company, it is important to specify exactly what you need out of the software outsourcing process and calculate your return on investments. A clear-cut, simple scope of work or technical specification document helps clarify what you need and how to achieve your goals with a skilled software outsourcing company.

Don't demand near-to-accurate software development service estimates if you do not know your end product. Clients may request a fixed price model for their project even if they are unsure of what they require. It is unthinkable. A skilled and professional offshore software development business would never give you a quote without first discussing your entire set of needs. In such cases, qualified software vendors usually offer hourly, weekly, or monthly-based pricing models. It is beneficial if the client is simultaneously exploring and testing the functions of its product before the official release. 

What do I need to know before contacting software development teams? 

It does not matter if you have at hand all of the documentation of your project or prefer coming up with your ideal software solution throughout the software development lifecycle (SDLC); you still need to have a clear picture of your final purpose.

Do a lot of brainstorming, discuss your idea with your colleagues or partners, draw your business plan or anything that will define your ultimate goal before contacting your potential software vendor. You can rely on the experienced team of business analysts of your software company to uncover the bigger picture of your project success, yet you should be clear about what you expect from this collaboration. If you have any doubts, your software partner will evaluate the viability of your project and assist you in coming up with more details.

Other important things to consider before reaching out to a software development company include:

• Highlighting the main functions of your software,
• Deciding on the basic design of your software,
• Mentioning the approximate time of release (if there are deadlines):
• Indicating software outsourcing cost limitations (if any):

Will they be focused and dedicated to my project?

You should have 100% of your team’s focus and dedication on your software development project. You want their “shower time” to be spent thinking about your problems. Context switching is expensive, inefficient, and even stressful for some people. It’s easy to make a column of numbers add up to 1 in a spreadsheet, but fractional allocation of people to software development projects is rarely a good thing, despite its prevalence in corporate America. Can you protect your team from the other demands placed upon them?

Of course, an outsourced team doesn’t guarantee full dedication to your project. Be sure you know who’s on your team and what else they’ll be doing. You should insist on transparency.

Will they be a good match with my existing project team?

It’s important to have a good match with your team. You should share similar values, be aligned on priorities and enjoy working together. A well-knit, high-functioning team makes for successful software development projects, whether that team is internal or external to your company.

Meet your prospective team. Learn what matters to them, what success looks like, how they see their job. Ask abut their backgrounds, experience, and approach to communication, coordination and conflict resolution.

Will they be available for maintenance?

Maintenance has similar considerations as future work, with an additional constraint around responsiveness. You can plan the work and control the timing for future product versions; you can’t always control the timing of maintenance. Maintenance may require responsiveness difficult for an outsourced team to provide, or pose a scheduling challenge when an internal team has been disbanded or are controlled by another manager.

Who is responsible for the client-software vendor communication process?

This question highly depends on the expectations of the client. At TIGO, we have no problem providing experienced project managers, seasoned manager, SPoC (single point of contact) or software engineers who communicate effectively. Software engineers only report their work and collaborate with the client to determine which features are required and how to achieve the desired result. Project managers are in charge of the entire software development and implementation process.

As a recognized software development partner, we go above and beyond if the project requires additional assistance (i.e. PA), it is recommended that you clarify the employees you need before beginning the software development and implementation process.

Are there any specific engagement models in offshore software development, and how do I know which one is the best fit for my project?

Custom software development - as the name implies - is a highly personalized software development process. The final product is custom-tailored for a specific company. As a result, it stands to reason that the approach to the software development process is also highly dependent on project characteristics. At CodeRiders, we pay special attention to this fact and are open to hybrid software development engagement models. Yet we provide several software development methodologies that are always effective. These are:

Fixed-price software development engagement model: In this case, the client provides precise and concrete software development documentation, an SOW paper, or works closely with the company's technical writer to create one. The software vendor, in its turn, assesses the time and cost scope of the project based on the documentation, and aggress on a fixed price and time frames, that are not a subject of modifications during the software development lifecycle.

Time and material software development engagement model: Time and material is a software development pricing model where the client only pays the software development team or their dedicated software engineers for time and resources spent on the project. This approach is ideal for projects that require a lot of flexibility, do not have set targets, and require a lot of modifications throughout the software development process. The two parties agree on hourly, weekly, or monthly prices and keep track of the working hours. The agile software development methodology is an appropriate solution for the T&M contract. Agile methodology is a flexible project management approach, where we split the project into several phases. It includes constant back and forth collaboration and communication of the stakeholders and ongoing improvement and modification at every stage.

Staff augmentation: Staff augmentation is a software outsourcing model or strategy where stakeholders evaluate and assess the existing staff and resources and determine which additional resources are necessary to complete the software project. It may include hiring dedicated developers or other IT professionals from a qualified custom software development company. The remote professionals become a part of the in-house team and work according to the client's requirements. It is also possible to hire an entire software development team and append it to the in-house team. Staff augmentation is a beneficial solution as, although the client hires software engineers that become part of their team, these employees are still not freelancers. They are under the control of a software development house that ensures their service quality and accelerates and facilitates the software development process whenever there is a problem. 

Will you ensure the privacy and security of my project/product? Should we sign an NDA? How will we handle intellectual property (IP) rights?

Signing an NDA with your software development partner is required if you are concerned about securing your trade secrets, keeping the project secret before release, or protecting other sensitive information. There are two kinds of NDAs:

• Unilateral: In this case, only one party aggress to protect the proprietary information of the other one.
• Mutual: Both parties (the client and software vendor) agree to protect the information of each other.

Unilateral NDAs are typically the most common because it is the client who shares sensitive information with the software vendor and is frequently concerned with intellectual property rights. Qualified software development firms have no reservations about signing such documents, but they are not thrilled about it. The reason is that if the software development project has a signed NDA, the software vendor usually also agrees not to use the project as a case study.

At TIGO, we usually sign NDAs and ensure that there is no leak of information in response to client requests. In our portfolio section, only projects that have been agreed upon for public sharing as a software development case study.

Why should I choose a remote software development team instead of hiring individual dedicated software engineers?

Hiring in-house software engineers requires much responsibility, resources, and time. Companies often spend a lot of resources on recruitment companies or their in-house employees to hire qualified software developers. In addition, forming an in-house software development team is not all you would have to do. After hiring software engineers, you should prepare the corresponding conditions for productive work, such as a convenient environment and working conditions.

On the other hand, hiring a custom software development company frees you from these steps. The offshore software development company is the one that is responsible for these issues, and your role is to find a qualified software vendor and manage effective software vendor-client communication.