DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION BLOG

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21 Jun 2019

Don't Make this Mistake in Staff Augmentation

Agile , Distributed Teams , Team Building , Software Development , Rightsourcing Comments: 0

As Unosquare continues to develop its presence from our Mexico and Northern Ireland delivery centers, we continue to learn valuable lessons on the key drivers for successful software development with distributed teams. One of the more important lessons we’ve learned is to set clear expectations early in the client relationship in order to prevent problems down the line.

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29 May 2019

Quality Assurance Questions to Ask in Agile Software Development

Effective Communication , Distributed Teams , Software Development , QA , Quality Assurance , Testing Comments: 0

 

Strong collaboration and communication with your development partners is very important to the Agile process. But, remember that in your role there are some important quality assurance questions that you should ask yourself to keep your processes consistent.

WHY ARE YOU ONLY TESTING WHAT THE USER STORY TELLS YOU?

User stories should have acceptance criteria added by a product owner or business analyst. These are usually helpful for QA to know when they can consider a story as “Passed QA.” However, it’s important not to just stick to the AC and test only the “Happy Path” for a feature. The AC usually tells us what we want to happen, but it’s our job as testers to think about what could happen. Remember to use your QA skills to think outside the box and run validation and negative tests to improve your test coverage on a story.

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16 May 2019

IT Staff Augmentation vs Outsourcing for Software Development

Agile , Distributed Teams , Team Building , Software Development , Rightsourcing Comments: 0

Often IT professionals don’t see much of a difference between staff augmentation and software outsourcing when they are putting together development teams. Before I worked at Unosquare, I wasn’t really aware of the distinction and thought of them basically as synonyms. But now that I’m a Tech Lead, I’ve learned that there is a clear and important distinction between staff augmentation vs outsourcing and have come to understand why it’s vital that companies choose the right solution when getting started with remote team services.

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09 May 2019

Don’t Forget These Quality Assurance Soft Skills

Effective Communication , Distributed Teams , Team Building , Software Development , Quality Assurance , Testing Comments: 0

Improving your "soft skills" will support a development team in effectively meeting project goals. When it comes to QA, these are some some of the more contemporary communication skills that have served to be effective in communicating with our Agile teams at Unosquare.

1. BE TACTFUL

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03 May 2019

Software Development Guidelines Pt 2: The Do's & Don'ts

Agile , Distributed Teams , Team Building , Software Development Comments: 0

As a reminder, last week we covered: Starting with Why, Defining Roles, Breaking Things Down, Drawing Pictures and Writing Words and Not Starting with the Small Stuff. These steps should provide a pretty solid foundation for a team to build on. So without further ado, mute your notifications for 10 minutes and let’s dive in to the remaining “Do’s and Don’ts” of our software development guideline.

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25 Apr 2019

Software Development Guide Pt 1: Do's & Don'ts of Software Development

Agile , Distributed Teams , Team Building , Software Development Comments: 0

Since I joined Unosquare, my co-worker Tom DiGati has been hounding me to write up a post for our blog. I suck at writing, so it takes me a while to do these things. I politely deferred (aka, blew him off) until his promises of eternal gratitude, friendship and agreeing to ride bikes whenever I wanted (you owe me, Tom) changed my mind. So, I sat down to labor over words that had been rattling around my brain for a while. This post is representative of the experiences I’ve had over the years creating products, services, and apps.

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16 Apr 2019

How to Set Up Outsourcing IT Projects For Failure

Effective Communication , Agile , Distributed Teams , Team Building , Software Development , Rightsourcing Comments: 0

1. SELL YOUR SERVICES

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26 Feb 2019

Building a Solid Foundation for Successful Software Development

Distributed Teams , Outsourcing , Rightsourcing Comments: 0

In the second phase of our "Rightsourcing" approach we focus on the importance of finding internal support and aligning requirements after you have decided to find an external partner for your software development.

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04 Jan 2019

A Guide Towards Right Sourcing: Software Development Outsourcing

Effective Communication , Agile , Distributed Teams , Team Building Comments: 0

This post is the first in a series intended to provide my guide to “Right-Sourcing.” This term is what I use to describe finding the best fit for distributed agile augmentation of your software development team. Over a series of posts, we will discuss how aligning your software staffing needs with available options – whether offshore, onshore, local contractors, or FTEs – is critical to the success of your digital transformation projects. Although a variety of best practices keep projects on track, choosing the right approach in the first place is a huge advantage that continues to pay dividends.

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18 Dec 2018

Assuming Leadership and Managing Distributed Teams

Effective Communication , Career Advancement , Distributed Teams , Remote Workers , Team Building , Leadership Comments: 0

Being promoted from within to assume a leadership role on a team where you were once a member has a set of inherent challenges — many of the issues that you would encounter come from assumptions and not taking the opportunity to set expectations. If it is an outside hire, they will likely be more descriptive in their approach to taking charge as they need to assess several team characteristics of which you are already aware. Because things like communication, ways of working, culture, etc., need to be understood, there will be a need to define them and therefore setting the expectations of the new leader. I suggest you set your expectations early and assume nothing.

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