Communication with your service provider is at the heart of success
It may come as no surprise to you, but one of the keys to a successful collaboration is clear and constant communication. By communicating regularly with your service provider, you’ll have the tools to effectively communicate issues, obstacles and objectives. This can be achieved by scheduling regular follow‑up meetings. Whether by e‑mail or through frequent meetings, these moments can be used to take stock of work in progress and to record decisions and next steps in the project. Using appropriate communication channels and collaborative tools such as Slack, Teams, or other project management platforms like Trello or Jira can be instrumental in making this communication successful.
To ensure a successful collaboration, the expectations and objectives to be met must be clearly expressed from the outset. There needs to be an alignment between the company’s needs and the service provider’s skills, identifying the expected results, deliverables, and deadlines.
Drawing a contract or detailed specifications can help establish each partaker’s responsibilities. Remember to involve all stakeholders and ensure all teams are informed and aligned with the collaboration.
Follow‑up and feedback to better understand challenges
Transparency and trust are paramount when working with an external IT service provider. Your company must not skimp on sharing relevant information, whether it be constraints or risks, even internally. Likewise, the service provider must be prepared to do the same to ensure that communication and transparency go both ways.
Subsequently, it’s important not to shy away from the feedback your company can provide to your service provider, whether positive or not. Giving constructive feedback will improve your company’s chances of seeing effective solutions emerge from the partnership. On the other side, your service provider must be flexible and adapt to your needs. Adjustments during a project are pretty standard, and it’s always a good idea to be open to suggestions from both sides.
Like communication tools, the choice of project management platforms such as Trello or Jira can be a great advantage in successful collaboration. These digital tools are designed to provide adequate monitoring throughout the project, providing tasks, deadlines, milestones and a summary of progress and performance. These key indicators can be used to produce follow‑up reports that can be used to adjust the following stages of the project.
Conflicts may arise between your company and your external IT service provider. The reasons are numerous: a difference in priorities, a misunderstanding about a deadline, or a tool’s underperformance. By identifying the causes and quickly creating a space for discussion, both parties can take all the opportunities to resolve the conflict and work out solutions. Don’t hesitate to be proactive to prevent the situation from escalating rapidly.
Finally, when the closing phase of collaboration approaches, it’s time to document the various stages of the project and gather feedback, notably through a post‑mortem, to improve potential future collaborations.
By choosing a web agency and a team of developers like Nmédia’s, you’re opting for outsourcing based on trust and transparency. Our outsourced development and application maintenance services are complemented by the expertise of our specialists, who support you in creating and managing digital solutions. Together, we’ll work to achieve your business objectives.