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Remote development challenges

From micro to self-managed remote software developers

Learn how one of our clients, CMNTY, was able to scale without intensive micromanaging through our self-managed remote software development model.

Talk to Jeroen, our Accounts director, to see if our ready-to-code dev teams are a fit for you.

How does remote software development really work? Suppose your business is thinking about investing in software development beyond your existing in-house capacity. In that case, reliability, expertise, and team integration are key areas to prioritize – especially if the team you’re hiring is based in another part of the world. 

What assurances do you have that they can meet your development needs? Will they require micromanaging?

Thankfully, Proshore’s proven solution of ‘ready-to-code dev teams’ is a lot more agile, competitive, and scalable than traditional models of ‘outsourcing’. So how does it work? 

Let’s take a closer look at how we partnered with CMNTY, a Netherlands-based Research SaaS, who were looking for an affordable solution to scale their software development – without costly talent acquisition and expensive onboarding.

1️⃣ Seamless onboarding and integration

CMNTY, like many businesses, leveraged our scalable solution to add a qualitative data product to their quantitative services. Proshore provided a ready-made development team that seamlessly integrated with theirs. Starting with one developer, CMNTY scaled up as needed.

Unlike some clients, CMNTY’s CTO, a former developer deeply familiar with the product’s ten-year development journey, understood the challenges. This extensive codebase, used for market research data collection, initially presented a hurdle for Proshore.

However, with an existing team member facilitating onboarding (around a month), Proshore quickly grasped CMNTY’s workflow and deliverables.

How Proshore fitted into CMTY's development needs and helped them scale sustainably along with their data collection platform – from a single developer to a solid development team.

2️⃣ Boosting teamwork and technical expertise

Another advantage of working with a ready-made remote team from Proshore – a team who already know each other well – is that their team leader knows their strengths, and is, therefore, able to deploy developers effectively.

Additionally, we also offer the services of a scrum master who manages the agile process of daily, stand-ups, sprint reviews, and so on. This means that the team leader can focus on getting the technical details right.

Proshore’s remote teams always have a separate team leader and scrum master to ensure that we quickly become self-managing once onboarded.

Additional tips

As with CMNTY, it is a real advantage to have a product owner who is a former developer. It helps cut down onboarding time and increase velocity, allowing the team to deliver more and meet targets each sprint.

When onboarding it also helps to allocate time for technical refinement, i.e. going through the existing code to understand what’s there, and making crucial updates where needed. By going through this additional process, the team can understand the depth of the task ahead of the next sprint. 

3️⃣ Working across time zones

With Proshore’s remote teams being based out of Nepal and CMNTY being based in the Netherlands, coordinating across time zones should have been a big challenge. But our teams have 15 years of experience in agile working and it’s part of what we do best. 

Agile working is an important facet of remote working and the methodology has always been part of how we operate. 

Depending on Daylight Saving Time, the Netherlands and Nepal are either three or four hours apart. So, there is an overlap in working hours where necessary meetings are planned.

1

Longer meetings are focused on refinement, where the team leader mainly asks questions that can facilitate clarity across the sprints.

2

Once clarity is achieved, the team need only sync between themselves, via daily standups, to ensure sprint targets are being met.

3

Escalations that arise are tackled swiftly. However, they rarely occur with teams experienced in agile working.

Key takeaways from our CMNTY partnership

Something our team really enjoys is being made to feel part of the CMNTY company. It’s a recurring theme in many of our collaborations, and a sign of successful integrations.

So what have we learned from this experience?

Final thoughts

Whether it’s a single developer or a complete team, Proshore’s self-managing development teams enable our clients to scale without intensive micromanagement.

As a cost-effective, long-term service partner, businesses bring us alongside to accelerate their growth and utilize the technical talent and experience of our teams in Nepal.

Wondering if our remote software developers can help your business grow? Book a call to explore if we are a fit.

Babish & Jeroen
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