Jan 11, 2022
5 min read

Best Practices to Make the Most Out of Your Nearshore IT Support

Managing and supervising your nearshore development teams isn't an easy feat unless you recruit the right people from the get-go.

However, implementing a set of best and actionable practices can help you benefit from your nearshore development team's competencies resulting in a higher return on investment.

To help you achieve your project-related goals efficiently, here is a round-up of some best practices for your nearshore teams to excel.

Ensure Fluency in the English Language

English is a global language used by 1.75 billion people to conduct businesses on a large scale.

But, support teams from nearshore countries usually need English lessons before they can work in tandem with your in-house teams. This training makes it easier for the development teams to interact and communicate externally and internally. 

One of the significant challenges for an offshore team is not communicating effectively due to language barriers.

They can significantly hamper the usefulness of your nearshore IT support teams. The result is more errors as necessary details get lost in translation. This can elongate a project's timeline and impact its progress.

Simply put, it's easier to relay information when the management and development teams share the spoken language with the offsite teams.

Encourage Effective Communication

Building on the previous point, a nearshore development support team should have the ability to connect effectively with all the involved members.

The teams must be capable and knowledgeable enough to ask the right questions from the onset of your project and collectively work to finish assignments on time.

Also, the teams should be able to leverage tools like Microsoft Teams or Slack that allow the developers to coordinate tasks while maintaining an open communication line.

Along with conventional project management tools such as Microsoft Project or JIRA, these tools allow for organized and outlined sprints with tasks allotted to every developer.

Make It Easy for Them to Visit Your Premises

If, for example, your team is located in Mexico. Their proximity to the United States makes it easy to invite them over to witness your operations, so they understand exactly what they've been hired to do.

Similarly, it'd be a lot more convenient for you to visit them periodically to keep track of performance.

Naturally, all of this is contingent on travel restrictions during the pandemic.

However, once these restrictions get lifted, the developers in Mexico City can easily make a day trip to the United States. Also, the time zone in Mexico is the same as the U.S., which makes the workdays usually the same length. So this is an advantage over conventional offshore outsourcing in Ukraine or India, with entirely different time zones.

Secure Your Intellectual Property

Working with a nearshore software development team makes it easy to safeguard intellectual property. For example, the international trade agreements and federal legislation make Mexico a preferred location to create intellectual property.

Still, it is critical to ensure that your development team signs the confidentiality and non-disclosure agreements. Of course, you will want a team of programmers you can depend on as they will have access to most of the organization's property.

Invest in Robust Technical Talent

Technical talent quality is critical to the success of development teams.

So as a client, it is imperative to consider the background of your nearshore team and their training and education level to comprehend how they can contribute to the company. Developers with strong technical knowledge will be more innovative in building code and agile tactics that will be worthwhile.

Various developers who have solid tech aptitude owe it to practical agile methodologies. It creates a culture around teams with collaboration and communication. Also, this will help your teams make more sustainable and better code.

The agile practices aren't always aligned with the schedule or scope of the management. Agile is about quality first, and that is why it is vital to implement agile methodologies in your development projects.

Wrapping Up

By following the best practices mentioned above with your nearshore team, you can ensure that they deliver their best work. That's how you can effectively stack the deck to support successful projects and achieve your goals without taking on more risk than necessary.

Definity First can help your company and provide the expertise you need to take your development projects to the next level. We specialize in the areas of proximity, language, expertise, access, quality assurance, and cultural alignment, so count on us to expedite your project's progress.