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This is your final moment of truth. Your options have made it through steps 1-4, and are on the final leg of the vetting. It's exciting because you think you've found the right one, and it can be heart-breaking to reject them because you've already put in all of this effort. So, dig deep, remove the emotions, and really focus on the final touches.
You now need to vet the firm on their intangibles—on their ability to maintain a relationship. This is crucial to a successful development process and so important that we actually have 11 behavioral variables that we look for in our interviews. If a development partner passes all 11, they become a part of our network. If they pass just 10, we don't move forward.
It sounds strict, and it is, but this process has ensured that all of our clients have great experiences with whichever firm they work with from our network.
Here are our top five factors we look for (sorry, the other 6 make up our secret sauce 🤫).
This one is self-explanatory. You will be communicating with them on your critical business components. You need to be able to understand each other. You will need to have meaningful, clear, well agreed-upon requirements and feedback. You'll be having many conversations with your development team (and some of them may be not-so-pleasant) so make sure you are comfortable.
What you're looking for here is comprehension and clarity of message. When speaking to developers and architects, are they able to convey concepts in a succinct and clear manner, or do you have to ask for clarification every time? If a bug comes up during development or if a delay arises, you want the development team to be able to articulate this message clearly to you and keep you in the loop.
If they have feedback for you on how you can better structure your user interface and user experience (UI/UX), then you want to be sure they are able to explain this clearly so you can take their advice. After all, they are the experts that you intend to hire.
How long does it take for your development team to respond? Do you have a Service Level Agreement and do they adhere to that agreement? What is their tone in response to normal questions?
Ultimately, your prospective development team should be incredibly responsive during the initial engagement and should always express a positive/excited sentiment. If the developers aren't meeting your expectation of responsiveness or have a disposition that lacks excitement during the beginning of a project when things are cheery and energy is high, then imagine what the relationship will be like when you hit a bump in the road. Don't assume that things will be better when the going gets tough if the status quo isn't satisfactory for you.
We are always told that listening skills are important. When you're working with offshore developers, it can be existential.
Do you have to repeat yourself multiple times? Sometimes, if it's a complex topic, you may have to repeat yourself to ensure understanding. This is true whether working with on-shore or off-shore developers. However, for day-to-day things, and simple requests, you want to be sure that you are not only being heard, but also registered.
It may not feel like a big deal off the bat if you repeat yourself a few times here or there, but when work starts to pick up you'll begin to see why this is such an important piece of the vetting. When you factor time zones and availability into the mix, you really want to have the full attention of your developers in those key waking hours that overlap between time zones.
When you are hiring a development team, you want to hire them for their skills AND feedback. You're hiring a professional, so you should find value in their voice and listen to their thoughts. If a dev expresses critical thinking by asking questions about your scope of work and comes prepared with suggestions and alternatives, then you're moving in the right direction.
If you hear blanket objections with no substance to back it up, then clearly it isn't the right relationship. On the other extreme, if you get silence or a one-word response to your scope of work, it's likely they are not actively listening.
However, if the firm/developer provides genuine reasoning and shows true interest in ensuring your product achieves the best look, feel, and functionality, then you've found a potential development partner.
You may find that your chosen development partner fits 3 or 4 of these 5 factors for success and you may be tempted to ignore their shortcomings and pursue the relationship. In the past, we've certainly compromised on our 🤫 super top secret 🤫 list of 11 factors we look for in interpersonal interviews, but each time we saw issues arise later in the relationship.
The unfortunate truth is that seemingly insignificant shortcomings in interpersonal skills in your development partner can lead to problems that start small and quickly compound over the course of your project. A minor miscommunication or misunderstanding in the early stages of the project can lead to delivering a finished product that is completely different from what you wanted, especially if there isn't a lot of transparency in the development process.
So stand firm by these factors to look for in interpersonal interviews, and try to make decisions without considering the amount of time you've spent vetting the firm up to now (we totally understand how much effort you've sunk into this). If you want some help vetting a firm or want to know what the other 6 factors are, feel free to reach out at [email protected]!
Running a business is hard,
Software development shouldn't be ✌️
