The good thing about working with a product development partner is that you will have the chance to launch the very best version of your product.
Not to mention that you don’t have to work on all of the ideas and executions alone. Your partner will work together with you to achieve your goals. But having outer professionals in your internal team is not as easy as you’ve probably thought. If the process is not managed well, the product launch could get delayed, or even worse to get canceled.
If you are running a new project or business, you will know that there are a lot of gaps between the product development process, in-house team, as well as outside vendors. The challenges will always come your way. And when it does come, you will need to take quick actions to make sure that everything is on the right track.
Here are the ways to build a better product development partner.
Grab all of the necessary information
There are a lot of mistakes to overcome when communicating your goals and expectations to your product development partner. It is very crucial to communicate with each other and conduct seamless information sharing from one party to another to prevent misunderstanding. You will need to ask the right questions to your outside partner about the person in charge. The questions might be different from one company to another. But it will go like thee. What kind of process will undergo the project? Who is responsible to monitor the p[rogreass? What will you expect from the progress? What kind of technology your partner uses for the project? How manyof people in their team who work on your project?
The questions can be hundreds to thousands. But you don’t need to hesitate to ask all of these questions to your partner. If you are working with the right partner, they will gladly answer your questions without any hassle or fuss.
Build good reps and trust in the project process
You are working with other people, it should be the due diligence to build a good relationship with your partner. Both sides should know each other so that they will know the flow of work.
During the pandemic, it might be impossible to meet each other. Get the online means of communications. Through this medium, you can observe each other. You will need to see how your partners work and their procedures. It works vice versa.
Through this two-way communication, you can build rapport and understand the culture of each party. When you know each other, it will be much easier to collaborate better.
Take time to observe and monitor. Consider noting all of the points that you think need to be improved. There is no such thing as a perfect process. You will notice some rooms for improvement when your project process is going.
Build a good communication
It is important to be clear about your expectations and build regular habits of communicating so that you can effectively achieve the milestones together. The last thing you want is that you waste your time, money, and resources just because your communication is bad.
The team representative on your in-house team and the outside product development partner must have the effective means of communication for the collaboration. That includes the sharing of the project progress. As the project owner, you will want to keep updated with the information about the progress, problems, and other matters.
To build good communication, you could hold weekly meetings. Make sure that all of the core team members attend the meetings. This occasion is an ideal approach to connect to each other. Even though there is not much to discuss in the meeting, the routine meeting should be done to improve the collaborative system and make sure the project is on the right track. By any means, do not cancel the meeting since it might ruin the flow of the work.
Be transparent and clear about the messages. Whether it is good or bad messages, don’t hesitate to spill them out. This will build good communication with the outer party as well. You also want to keep the communication simple, short, and dense.
Be clear about your requirements and expectations
It might sound cliche for you. But did you know that many projects failed simply because project owners were not clear about what they wanted?
the product development partner tends to start with ambiguity if they don’t know exactly what’s on your mind as project owner. They cannot make the expectations into reality because you are not being transparent in giving the ideas and information to them.
When you are interacting with your product development partner, make sure you emphasize the clarity of your requirements. No matter what type of project, it is crucial to have the same common grounds with the other party. Put it simply, they will give the right solutions if they know what you expect and require. Both you and your partner need to understand these requirements and the possibilities to achieve certain milestones. If you are working with the right partner like ERBIS company, they will be completely honest with you. They will tell you directly if your expectations or requirements are impossible.
Be open-minded
It is another key that you won’t want to miss. The software engineers in ERBIs work at a faster pace. They are flexible and open-minded. So, it is not surprising if they are able to make new dozen strategies to work in agile ways. The fine-tuning plans might seem to be a daunting task for you and your team. But you will need to be open to collaboration if you want your project to get done well.
It is your right after all as a client. You will be able to participate in the project based on your current capability and motivation. You can go as deep as you need to see how the project is going on. When you and your internal team are open to collaboration, it is also possible that your party will get the transferable skills from your outside partner. It is really a win-win solution.
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