The gig economy is replacing more and more of the traditional economy. For companies looking to hire software developers, this offers tremendous opportunities – as well as risks.
Previously, we discussed how many companies are already replacing in-house developers with freelance developers. That’s because working with freelance developers offers you a series of advantages. It gives you access to an international talent pool, can boost productivity, and helps you cut costs.
However, even though the growth of the gig economy presents a tremendous opportunity, so you’ll have to prepare your business to take advantage of it. There are certainly challenges you may face when adopting this new way of working, which may involve problems with:
- Supervision
- Working across different time zones
- Online communication
- Working on the same files
- Maintaining the same goals
- Shipping products and new features quickly
Accordingly, this post intends to show you how you can access the benefits of working with freelance developers by overcoming these challenges. We will guide you through the process of designing an optimal workflow when working with one or more freelance developers.
This will enable you to get the most out of the freelance economy and position your business for success. Let’s get to it!
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Hire the Right Freelance Developers
The first step in ensuring an optimal workflow for software development is to hire the right remote developers. You must hone your hiring process to find and recruit developers who have what it takes to work remotely.
We’ve gone in-depth about hiring freelance developers before, but here are three key areas you should keep in mind during the hiring process:
- Get Referrals
- Review Portfolios
- Ask the Right Questions
Read More: Here’s How to Best Motivate and Reward Your Remote Engineering Team Members
Get Referrals
When hiring remote developers, it is critical to check out referrals or use some other mechanism to determine the reputation of the developer. This will help you ensure that you hire someone reliable, and with the desired skills.
Alternatively, working with a platform that has a rigorous vetting procedure is another great way to find a reliable developer. You can check out our comparison of the most popular platforms for hiring developers here.
Review Portfolios
Generally, you should ask to review past coding work from the developer you’re interviewing. However, don’t forget that many developers work under NDAs, and they may be unable to share previous projects.
Seeing past projects will allow you to determine if the developer is sufficiently familiar with what you’re looking to do. It’s also a great way to assess skill level.
Ask the Right Questions
Asking the right questions in the interview process is critical to finding the right candidate. Aside from these essential interview questions for freelance developers, during the interview, try to look for two key factors:
- a combination of passion, interest, and skills,
- great communication skills.
When working with remote developers, bad communication is an absolute productivity killer. That’s why you must hone your interview process to find people who love their craft and are articulate.
During the interview process check how well the developer is able to explain technical details. Here are some good interview questions (including technical ones) specifically for web developers and software engineers to get you started.
A great communicator is typically able to explain complex details in simple terms to a lay audience. That’s the kind of developer you’re looking for!
Read More: How to Do Taxes When Hiring a Freelancer (Software Developer Clients)
Use the Appropriate Tools
Utilizing the right technology is key to ensuring adequate project management, documentation, time management, and ample communication.
There are a ton of tools available to help you communicate and manage your freelance developer, so choosing the right tools will depend on your needs, budget, as well as the developer’s preferences.
Set Clear Processes
Clear processes are at the heart of a good workflow with freelance developers. Evidently, the aim of the procedures should be to provide enough structure to ensure adequate communication, a thorough understanding of goals, and smooth collaboration.
These processes will help you prevent potential problems that may arise when working with freelance developers. They will enable you to supervise your remote team closely and help you work & communicate across different time zones.
At the same time, your remote team will be able to work synchronously on the same files. And finally, such initiatives will also help your team maintain common goals and ship products or new features quickly.
If you have a smaller project, requiring just one developer, then setting a good workflow is usually much simpler. In such cases, setting clear goals combined with weekly updates and feedback sessions along with a direct method of communication (such as Slack or Zoom) may be enough.
Read More: How to Implement a Welcoming Software Developer Onboarding Process
When Working With Multiple Freelance Developers
Things get more complicated with larger projects, involving multiple remote or freelance developers. We’re talking about cases that involve numerous remote developers, or a freelance developer working alongside a local team. Consequently, in such cases, you need to make sure that:
- You build team spirit and cohesion amongst the developers so that they work well together, by treating remote developers like your on-site developers
- You adequately divide responsibilities such that everyone knows what they have to do
- There are clear mandatory processes of communication that everyone has to participate in
- Feedback is provided, and the project always kept on track
- You create a fun, vibrant work culture that allows for balance between work, play, and socialization so that developers enjoy working for your business.
We’ll also recommend a few tactics for larger projects. Firstly, you can try to organize weekly video hangouts to discuss progress, challenges, issues, and even personal matters. These are great to schedule on Thursdays and make sure they don’t interfere with anyone’s weekend.
Another great tactic to boost productivity and increase socialization is to create pairs. This helps team members get to know each other and work together on problems and issues. This also happens to be very useful when you’re looking to encourage Agile development practices.
To make sure the project stays on track, every team member should post weekly updates. These should contain information about what they shipped the previous week, and what they’re currently working on.
In addition, checking in daily with your freelance developers can be very useful to make sure each day’s priorities are clear. Monthly feedback sessions can also be helpful to gauge overall progress in longer projects.
Make sure that all the processes you implement help promote active communication, maintain team harmony, and help move the project forward.
Read More: How to Integrate Freelance Software Developers Into Your Current Team
Embrace Agile Development
The other key component that will help you streamline your workflow is the adoption of Agile development practices. It will help you minimize development time, and deliver better products, faster.
One thing you can try is to have each remote developer take turns in customer service. Having each developer personally engage with customers will help generate a better flow of ideas. At the same time, it will also help you introduce desired features faster and stay ahead of the competition.
Many chatbots offer integration with Slack, so this can be a great way to give your remote developers access to interact directly with customers where possible.
To further help in this effort, you should try to build your app or product around a user story. You can refine the user story by interacting with your customers. It will help you make sure that you produce something that the market wants.
The software development process should always remain fluid. Adjustment based on customer feedback is critical to ensure fast shipping of new products and features. If it turns out that customers want another feature introduced when the product launches, try to put it in. They’ll love it, and it will show on your bottom line. And when working with freelancer developers, Agile development will help speed up this process significantly.
To manage the development process, especially with multiple remote developers, we recommend you use a task board, such as Trello, Monday, and other Monday alternative. You can move tasks from “to do” to “completed,” and keep track of all aspects of the project at a distance. This will help you make sure your project doesn’t fall behind.
Overall, adopting Agile development practices will help you maximize the efficiency of your workflow with your developers. When it comes to working with freelance developers, it becomes absolutely essential to take advantage of the quick, organic workflow that Agile practices permit.
Read More: Good Developers Don’t Always Make Good *Freelance* Developers
Wrapping Up
So there we are. We’ve now fully outlined the critical steps required to make your team of remote or freelance developers as productive as possible.
Remember: creating the optimal workflow starts with selecting the right developers, giving them access to the necessary tools, and then setting up the proper processes. Embracing Agile development’s best practices will also improve productivity and decrease the shipping time of your software or product.
Now you have what it takes to structure an optimal workflow for your freelance developers. At this point, you’re ready to position your business to take advantage of the freelance economy.
If you’re a freelance developer, how do you create an optimal workflow with your client? If you’ve worked with freelance developers before, how did you make sure things went smoothly? Let us know in the comment section below!
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