Choosing a suitable Software Development Company for your project is the same as hiring a crew to construct a new house for you. It is not easy to choose the proper Software Development Company for your specific project.
It’s great when you understand the possibilities and expertise of your future contractor. And it goes like ideal cooperation if you’d felt synergy of mutual trust. As far as aspects you should pay attention to are numerous, we decided to describe some useful guidelines for you.
1. Small or Big Software Company?
It is not all about the code. It is all about the business, company experts must understand the primary goal of the project and how it will work for you.
When you choose a company, it’s essential to determine balance between size and other needs.
A big company may not give you enough attention while small give you much more importance. But it should be enough resources and personal touch. A small company may not cover big project whereas a big company may not be interested in implementing little ones.
2. Review experience and references.
Paying attention to company experiences and external references is essential. Optionally would make a request for recommendations.
Analyze reviews about the company and collect recommendations from customers. In some cases, the assessment can be very subjective and depend on personal relationships. In any case, you can make the final decision after negotiations with the manager who will lead your project.
3. Technologies they are working with.
The company should have experts to provide the technical skills you need for your particular project.
4. Chemistry and effective communication.
The company which will provide software development for you must be chosen with a passion.
Remember that it’s crucial to find good synergy and develop pleasant communication because you will work together for a certain period.
And very important is absence of language barriers to have easy and clear communication. As well time zone difference and flexibility of working hours should be taken into account.
5. Project files accessibility.
While choosing the right software team it’s very important that company give constant access to the actual code (Gitlab/ Github), project management dashboard (Trello/ JIRA), time reports/stage of the project and instant messenger for successful communication (exp. Slack, RocketChat).
This aspect helps accurately control project implementation and improve communication. Transparency is highly important in the way of Software Development.
6. Cost-effectiveness.
Probably the best advice here is to avoid the cheapest offers and keep in the middle. You should better keep flexibility at this point.
There are two payment models: fixed price and payment per hour.
The majority prefers one time payments. They do not really worry that estimate will be lower or higher. But we firmly recommend you to avoid the fixed price model. When you order with a fixed price model, you have to have a very well prepared plan and business/technical requirements where most of It companies usually add 25% for risks.
Whatever you will choose - remember: trust and integrity overweight cost.
7. Project management methodology.
Each project is more likely to different methodologies. Most famous are waterfall and Agile. Both have advantages and disadvantages. But when talking about Software Development more and more popular becomes agile methodology.
With agile methodology, you will constantly follow your project. Besides, it is more flexible for changes that appeared during the implementation phase.
In waterfall you provide your requirements in the planning period and after you will see the work only after implementation and as well changes possible after implementation. In agile each sprint should be finished with a demo of the product.
Agile manifesto provides better ways of developing software by doing it and helping others to do the same. The main points are:
- Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
- Working software over comprehensive documentation
- Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
- Responding to change over following a plan
8. ASK questions
It is quite similar to a job interview. Ask as many questions as you can to get the picture you need. Prepare a list of question beforehand. It is a professional team that you hire to implement your project that is high priority and importance for you.
9. List of Questions Must be asked in advance.
- Tell me what your process/approach for application implementation is?
- How are we going to communicate during the project regarding progress, problems, changes?
- What was your solution when your past project went wrong?
- Which tools will we use during the project to have successful collaboration?
- Will developers accepted to my project also work on any other project at the same time?
- How do you ensure software quality?
- Will I own the source code?
- Do you also work on technical documentation?
- Will you provide me with profiles of the developers that will work on my project?
- Who is the most skilled person on your team? Can I have an interview with him?
- Why your company is better than other software development companies?
- What is your cost rate (Man/day)?
- Have you ever worked on any project similar to mine?
- Could you provide any references/recommendations from your clients?
We hope that this article will help you in choosing a company that will meet your requirements.
FlexSolution team is always here for you to help with any digital task that you will meet in your enterprise.