Modern companies hire remote employees for a number of reasons and this is beneficial for the business development. As for the software development, the whole remote team can be hired even before the clear requirements are provided. In this article, we will describe 5 aspects of effectively communicating with a remote development team. We will also share our experience and observations. But remember that these are just tips, not a clear guide!

If you are in the process of selecting an IT Partner now, then you might be interested in reading “How to choose a software company?” first.

1. Who will be the project manager?

First, determine who will communicate with the development team on your part? You can do it personally or delegate to your assistant. So, most of the discussions and chatting will be his responsibility, and only important questions will reach you. Some business owners prefer to control development by themselves. Well, if you have experience in programming and/or project management, then this task will be up to you, but it can take a lot of effort and time.

TIP: Ask your IT-partner to provide a project manager through which you will communicate with the whole team. This will be much more effective than if you have to write to the designer for design issues, and for site errors – to the front-end developer, etc.

2. Common language of the communication

Nowadays the most popular language is English. You will easily find yourself a team with at least fluently speaking project managers and team leads. In personal communication with representatives of the software development company, make sure that you understand each other well, otherwise in the future misunderstanding will transform into a huge problem. If your mother tongue isn’t English, then you’d better filter the development teams on this parameter at the time of collecting the list of potential partners.

3. The channel

Choose the right tool for communication. In our company, for example, we often use Slack and Skype. Sometimes our customers prefer to communicate with Google Hangouts, HipChat or others services. In this case, either we adapt to the clients, or explain the benefits of our conversation tools.

4. Break big tasks into small ones

Creating a website, an online store, a social network or any other Internet project is a long process that consists of a set of small tasks. Break all tasks into intermediate stages (milestones) and determine the timeframe for their implementation. In the end, you should get a schedule of calls and milestone results demonstrations. As our experience shows, this is the most optimal way to control project development. So, you won’t unnecessarily distract each other daily, but at the same time, you will be able to track the progress of accomplishing the tasks set.

5. No such thing as a stupid question

There are no dumb questions. So ask questions and talk about your doubts to reach the desired result. The only advice is not to write questions in the general chat right away, as they come. It is better to make lists, which, for example, once a week, are sent to the project manager.

These are the most important problems that arise in the process of project development, as our experience shows. Thank you for reading to the end. Don’t hesitate to comment on the article or ask your questions. We are open for communication! 🙂