DevOps practices streamline development progress and change the whole culture of collaboration. DevOps skill acquisition among developers is growing and, as of now, makes 35.9%.
Yet, DevOps presupposes a total merge of the development and operations teams, and outsourcing any part of the project may be a challenge.
This article will discuss the main challenges of outsourcing DevOps and how to avoid them.
What Is DevOps?
In the DevOps work frame, the development and operations teams plan work and report on their progress together, communicating constantly. This results in shorter development cycles and, eventually, improved productivity.
Yet, working collaboratively within a company is not a big deal. What about implementing collaborative culture when a part of a team is located in another part of the world?
In such a scenario, you may face a range of challenges. Here are the main to consider:
1. Finding The Right Partner
Outsourcing any part of a project run within the DevOps methodology starts with the common challenge – trust.
To find a trusted partner, select a candidate who is sincerely interested in your business needs, understands your niche specifics, or tries to develop such.
For example, MLSDev – DevOps outsourcing company, gets an insight into every client’s business history and provides market research to ensure the product developed fits the demand of the local audience.
2. Overcoming Communication Blockers
All participants of an outsourced project should be excellent communicators. That means they need a good command of English, literacy in working with different tools, and good facilitation skills, ensuring nothing gets skipped or misunderstood during the project.
3. Lack Of Control
Although DevOps methodology is based on frequent updates, instant sneak peeks at the early product versions won’t be available.
As a solution, you should implement frequent regular reports and agree with your vendor on transparent role sharing. Additionally, establish a clear communication schedule and agree on messaging apart from the schedule to reduce frustration over distraction.
4. Quality
Most companies address software outsourcing vendors for the amalgamation of good quality, reasonable prices, and rare expertise combined with a readiness to jump onto a project at any time required.
Yet, fears of eventual bad quality are a typical satellite of many outsourcing projects. To avoid these concerns, it is recommended to establish clear quality expectations with the Service Level Agreement and ask your potential vendors about examples of previous, successfully created products.
5. Accuracy Of Project Estimation
Business owners know the potential and speed of their teams. But what if the teams are merged? Issues with the proper project estimation are typical when outsourcing DevOps. Usually, respectable outsourcing companies provide business analysis services to foresee all the factors that may influence the duration and costs.
Avoiding fixed-price projects and preparing separate estimates for different project stages is also recommended.
Summing Everything Up
The DevOps culture per se changes traditional practices of collaboration involving more communication and frequent reporting and requires people to ask questions and give answers during all the development time. This spreads to projects involving third-party teams and, when implemented successfully, brings many benefits to all sides.
