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IT Consulting | Outsourcing | Vietnam

We are well aware of how much time and financial resources software development takes, which is why outsourcing IT projects to the right partner is an excellent alternative. That said, one shouldn’t automatically expect a smooth process right away. There are best practices in communication with a dedicated offshore team to follow, which helps you avoid any potential obstacles related to working with an IT partner.

With excellent communication skills and practices, you’ll be able to stay agile in today’s competitive industry, ensuring success and effective collaboration in the long run. Read on for key tips to overcome any challenges associated with communicating with offshore teams.
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## Best Practices in Communication with a Dedicated Offshore Team

 ![](https://res.cloudinary.com/innomizetech/image/upload/v1708942450/production/blogpost_communication_8d95e52cb8.png) 

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Managing an offshore team may not be as easy as overseeing your in-house team. After all, you can’t walk over and monitor an offshore team as you would with your employees in a physical office. You will be dealing with a few minor challenges, including:

- Different culture
- Ineffective communication
- Language barriers
- Difficulties in setting a communication schedule
- Lack of progress tracking

Fortunately, your IT partner and you, can overcome these obstacles when you both foster open communication and trust. With all this in mind, consider following these best practices in communication with your dedicated offshore team and reaping the benefits it offers.

### **Define the vision**

One of the first and best practices in communication with your dedicated offshore team is to have a strategic vision. Unfortunately, many businesses simply assign urgent tasks to their offshore team without explaining the goals, objectives, or the project’s big picture.

What happens when offshore team members aren’t properly instructed about the project goals? They end up feeling disengaged, which results in poor performance and low-quality results.

Regardless of what part of the software development process your offshore team is working on, they must understand the penultimate goal, along with your company and project’s vision and direction.

Setting clear expectations and objectives will help give your offshore team a better idea of what the product should look like according to your expectations and the company’s vision.

Make sure that you discuss the following:

- Scope of work, which must include deliverable timelines with appropriate milestones, priorities, and the expected outcome.
- Define roles and responsibilities, which helps the team understand and follow the assigned tasks without confusion.


### **Set a Clear Roadmap**

Besides setting clear expectations and objectives, you should also know how to divide the project by time intervals, which allows for continuous improvement in terms of task management. You can do this by creating a product development roadmap to have a high-level view of what’s needed to accomplish the product vision.

You may want to consider splitting the software development process into shorter stages, which are known as sprints. This should include specific priorities, the scope of work for every team member, and the overall project timeline. This will allow you and your offshore team to easily track the project’s progress, making any necessary changes to align with your roadmap.

A clear roadmap with distributed sprints will help your team work comfortably and efficiently. 
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### **Develop a Communication Strategy**

Because of the distance and time zones, it can be easy to keep offshore teams in the loop, which leads to misunderstandings and the failure to meet expectations. 

Because all forms of communication will happen through video meetings or calls, you need to choose the right communication tools that work for both parties. Here are a few platforms you may want to consider for their accessibility and ease of use:

- Google Meet and Zoom for conference calls
- Slack, Skype, and WhatsApp for direct messaging and calls
- Trello and Jira for assigning tasks, reporting, and tracking progress

The next question you might have in mind: How much should we communicate? Constant communication is key as it helps you stay updated on what’s been done, what’s currently on the table, and any potential issues that need to be addressed. It’s best to communicate daily, even through messaging, while weekly video meetings with the whole team are ideal. 

Have a combination of synchronized and asynchronous communication options for team members to stay in touch regardless of the chosen communication tool.

Besides this, you must also minimize the risk of language barriers by simplifying the communication strategy. This entails avoiding certain slang and metaphors, using basic vocabulary, and being straight to the point when talking with team members. It’s worth looking up cultural practices and beliefs out of respect, which will reduce potential conflicts caused by cultural differences.

### **Employ an Agile Approach**

The agile development methodology is known to be an effective tool when it comes to managing offshore development teams, as it provides a more transparent framework focusing on iterative and incremental methods. As such, it can adapt to varying degrees of feedback or the current market.

Quality and efficiency are prioritized in the agile approach, so this technique can be employed with your offshore team management system for better production. Furthermore, this method will help prioritize tasks based on client requirements and value, ensuring that the team will work on the most important tasks, which is a must considering the fact you will work with limited communication and in different time zones.

### **Schedule Dedicated Work Times**

When you choose the right communication tools, your effort doesn’t stop there. You must also consider the different time zones and how to work around them. Combat the time difference by scheduling overlapping work hours, so you will have more time devoted to updating one another and identifying any potential issues together.

When you both make adjustments to the work schedule, both parties will be able to organize and plan the workflow, thus minimizing unexpected holdups and delays. This may mean either slightly earlier mornings or later nights for meetings, but it will be worth the extra effort for a smooth collaboration and success.

### **Have an Effective Onboarding Process**

Even top IT talents will need time to learn and familiarize themselves with new tech stacks and products. Before you start the project, focus on the onboarding and knowledge transfer process. This will ensure that the offshore team will understand the project’s goals and expectations, along with your company’s culture and workflow.

What will the process include?

You must provide training on your company’s software development practices, tech stacks, and methodologies, along with sharing relevant documentation and knowledge resources.

By doing this, your offshore team will unleash their productivity and easily integrate themselves into your team. It will also reduce the risk of delays, miscommunication, misunderstandings, and preventable mistakes that usually occur when offshore teams aren’t familiar with the company’s work processes or the project requirements.

### **Build a Relationship**

Proper communication first starts with a good, professional relationship. Your remote team is the extended version of your in-house team, you shouldn’t act like a client who just wants someone to accomplish tasks. Your offshore team is equally important, and you must treat them as part of yours!

Your offshore team will be the ones that can help you transform your business and bring it to success, so you must maintain a healthy relationship and keep them motivated for them to perform well.

There are many ways to build a relationship and trust with your offshore team, first by letting them feel involved in every aspect of the project. Communicate your ideas and vision, then ask for suggestions to bring your teams closer.

It’s also important to get to know every team member personally and make them feel appreciated for the work they perform. You’ll also want to have regular meetings with a combination of scrum and agile frameworks, which can help tackle communication issues.

### **Set Realistic Requirements or Expectations**

Yes, it’s important to strive for almost perfection, but never to the point where you’re putting too much pressure or forcing motivation. You may end up with unexpected (and negative) results.

While pressure can boost employee productivity, going overboard will cause stress and anxiety, thus reducing performance and work quality. When you establish goals and timelines, consider these questions:

- How difficult is the task?
- Can team members meet the deadline?
- Do you believe your employees are capable of completing the project and the tasks involved?

## Work with Us Today

In today’s modern world, you need to stay ahead. One way to do so is by finding and hiring a reputable offshore development team with adequate skills and experience to handle your projects. That said, it isn’t easy to manage remote teams due to communication issues and challenges such as time zone differences, cultural differences, and the lack of physical interactions.

Hopefully, these best practices in communication with your dedicated offshore team will help you out. Remember to keep in mind that success begins with building a positive relationship and effective communication with your offshore team. So, make sure your chosen IT partner is one that you can trust and feel confident working with in the long run!

 ![](https://res.cloudinary.com/innomizetech/image/upload/v1688627971/production/workenv1_jpg_90864bbbb8.jpg) 

If you’re still looking for a great IT partner to collaborate with, consider us at Innomize and contact us today to discuss your project.

How to Ensure Best Practices in Communication with Your Dedicated Offshore Team

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