We at Ada Beat have long experience working with remote teams and software developers from all over the world and especially with software development teams from Vietnam. In this 4 part series of posts we will share the challenges, benefits, a guide on how to start with remote software development teams from Vietnam and a guide on how to scale remote software development teams from Vietnam.
In this third post we will condense our competence and experience into a guide on how to start with remote software development teams from Vietnam.
The 3 steps to get started with remote software development teams from Vietnam
1. Prepare the organization for remote teams
2. Select what to do remote
3. Start up the first (on-site) software developers
Prepare the organization for remote teams
If your organization is used to working with software development teams sitting in one office/location then starting up a team somewhere else will mean a transition for the current software development organization. To make this transition as smooth as possible the current software development process needs to be somewhat formalized, with digital backlogs, standing planning, demo and retrospective meetings. It also needs to be clear who is responsible for the overall strategy and architecture of the application/software. And something that is usually overlooked, how are raise conditions between teams cleared? There is always a bottleneck in all organizations whether it is test benches, specific tools, single individuals or teams that have integrations towards everything. If this was difficult in an office, it’s even more difficult in a remote setup.
We assume that most organizations have already passed this due to restrictions and work from home policies and are ready to take the next step.
Select what to do remote
Once you have prepared your organization for remote work, you should select what you want to be done remotely. Preferably your application/solution is already well architected and you have separated components/domains/applications with defined APIs. However this is usually not the case, most organizations have a mixed application environment with everything from old spaghetti monoliths to newer micro and domain services.
You could select to continue to develop and maintain the old monolith on a remote team, and in this way free the organization’s software developers to do new services/applications/solutions. You could also add capacity remotely because of your increased business needs, the remote teams will be and act like any other team you have.
It could also be that you are not sure what will be good to be done remotely, you have some ideas but you have not settled or are unsure. Then check the next paragraph.
Start up the first (on-site) software developers
Once you have decided to start with a remote team. We recommend that you start with software developers on-site (due to restrictions this might not be an option), so then let the software developers join and be an integral part of your existing teams to get a quick start and know their way around in your organization. This can also be used for you and your organization to understand what could be done remotely.
Summary
Starting up a remote software development team can be made in an easy and agile way, where you can iteratively learn how you and your organization can work with software developers remotely.
Check out the other three parts in this post series
Building software development teams in Vietnam – challenges
Building software development teams in Vietnam – benefits
Guide on how to scale remote software development teams from Vietnam
If you have any feedback, thoughts or want to know more, feel free to reach out to the author or contact us.
