9 Warning Signs Your Outsourced Development Project Is Going Off Track

Outsourced software development offers companies an excellent opportunity to cut costs and invest in the promotion of products and services without sacrificing development. Unfortunately, it is not as simple as handing over a list of tasks to a team of developers in another company. There are clear challenges to reaping the full list of advantages of vendors. Misalignment with initial goals and expectations, misunderstandings, distance, and other difficulties lead a project to move in a different direction.

To avoid these situations, stakeholders and managers need to recognize the signs that indicate when an outsourced development project is off track and when they need to take action to correct the project's course.

Regardless of where a team of outsourcers is located, in the client's country or a continent away, there is no 100% guarantee that a project will not encounter roadblocks or begin to move in a direction that differs from the client’s original intent or vision. That is why it is necessary to recognize these early signs to ensure proper outsourcing risk management. Two crucial elements of such a strategy are transparency and communication.

Vendors do not want to take advantage of their clients; however, a lack of clear visibility into their work and poor communication lead to challenges in the relationship. Likewise, they typically demonstrate poor processes and other problems within the development company’s workflow. Any of the signs below deserve attention and immediate action to reduce the risk of critical issues developing in a project.

It is important to establish contact persons at the beginning of a project on the client and vendor's side. This is typically a role performed by delivery and project managers. If, for some reason, this has not been done, or if the manager on the vendor’s side has become unreliable, the project will encounter bottlenecks as questions or tasks are passed from one person to another.

Clients notice the team consistently missing agreed-upon delivery dates or requesting timeline extensions without clear justification. At times, outsourcers silently miss the milestones as if they did not realize it was important. This can indicate poor workflow processes or a misunderstanding of priorities.

Delays that exceed expectations are a sign of bad organization or other issues within the vendor's team. Even worse, a vendor may not respond to questions and concerns. This can lead to situations when clients need to actively chase the development team for project updates, which wastes their time that could be spent on other tasks.

Businesses turn to outsourcers to delegate effort and resources in developing a solution. Nevertheless,  the client expects to receive updates on any issues that are creating delays or requiring more resources. When outsourcers ignore or discourage such requests for sharing information and access to instruments, clients may develop a sense of underlying issues in the project the vendor wants to hide.

Businesses hire outsourcers to complete a specific scope of work that is outlined in a business requirements document. During the project, outsourced developers may experience roadblocks and choose a method to overcome them without consulting the customer. As a result, the project's budget can expand despite an agreed-upon initial cost.

The presence of frequent bugs during testing, features that do not work as specified, or interfaces that do not match the approved designs are already clear indications that an outsourced team of developers is not meeting client expectations. However, if the team has been asked to remove and fix mistakes yet continues to present the same issue, that is a red light that they will produce poor results. Ignoring this sign can lead to overpaying to fix these bugs and being forced to find another team to do it.

Documentation is vital in outsourcer-client relationships. Effective teams integrate documentation into their workflows to help clients control products and support customers while enabling developers to maintain consistency when team changes occur. Modern vendors should use AI tools for documentation management. Indications that work is headed in the wrong direction include receiving incomplete information, outdated diagrams, or promises of "end of project" documentation—all indicating potential project issues.

Engineers leave and join teams since outsourcers experience the same types of dynamics that other companies do, though frequent introductions to new developers or project managers hint at larger issues within the business. The outsourcers may prioritize other projects, or they may have a high turnover of engineers. In either case, this will result in delays and mistakes. The clients will need to onboard new team members, and if there is a lack of documentation, project knowledge may not be transferred properly during transitions.

Outsourcers may provide project updates, but they contain phrases that claim "90% completion" without change for weeks. Vendors may also use technical jargon to obscure actual status or do not match demonstrations. These are signs that underlying issues may be causing disruption to the project, or the project team may be focusing on other tasks. Likewise, when routine promises include words such as "we'll fix that properly later" or temporary solutions with promises of proper fixes in the future, it is necessary to discuss the issue directly with the outsourcing team.

Understanding these situations will help clients avoid a failed outsourcing project and extra expenses. Both clients and vendors want better products and improved performance. Outsourcing companies rely on positive reviews and recommendations from clients; therefore, their leadership wants to avoid IT project failures and the poor reputation that these create.

Given this list of signs that a project is moving in the wrong direction, business leaders may decide that micromanagement will help reduce the chance that these situations occur. They may consider another "cure" to be physical proximity to their outsourcers. Nonetheless, instead of supporting healthy software development, these approaches will increase the costs and slow down progress.

Instead of micromanagement, clients can take advantage of positive control and observation. These are the keys to an effective client and outsourcer relationship. This means that clients and other stakeholders have access to project updates and performance without constant meetings or emails and, most importantly, without interfering in the work of developers. This is not to be confused with spying or recording screens. That creates lots of data that does not provide any real estimation of performance. Instead, clients can use tools to collect data and AI to analyze it in the background. These instruments gather information on activities within a project, such as task status changes, comments, commits, and other actions the outsourcing team should perform. Then, they provide insights into performance to help both developers and stakeholders make necessary adjustments and informed decisions.

Enji offers several convenient features to help businesses obtain complete transparency into the work of outsourcing teams. Visibility reduces the chances of any critical issues occurring and helps teams and managers resolve roadblocks. Enji provides all this information with AI-powered insights in a single platform:

Companies can use Enji in projects with one or several outsourcing teams because it scales to match the needs of users. Stakeholders enjoy peace of mind with regular updates and visibility, while vendors reap the benefits of data-driven processes.

Don't let your outsourced development project go off track. Enji's AI platform provides 24/7 monitoring, real-time visibility, and actionable insights without disrupting your team's workflow.

Book a demo today and discover how Enji can help you:

• Gain complete transparency into your outsourced team's performance
• Receive AI-powered insights through intuitive dashboards
• Eliminate communication bottlenecks with asynchronous stand-ups
• Stay informed with automated alerts and project summaries
• Ensure on-time delivery within budget

Take control of your outsourced development projects now. Our team will show you how Enji's unique features can transform your outsourcing experience and keep your projects aligned with your business goals.