How to Improve Team Alignment when Working with Both In-House and Outsourced IT Specialists?

How do you align your team when working with both in-house and outsourced IT specialists? This is a common question among enterprises – without proper team alignment, the project won’t move forward as efficiently as it could. What you need is a good plan, an engaged leader, good feedback, and regular check-ins. Do you want to learn more? Then keep reading!

How to Improve Team Alignment?

If you’re outsourcing IT specialists, you face one main challenge: ensuring the collaboration goes smoothly, proceeding with the project towards a unified goal. In practice, this means aligning your team. How to do this effectively?

#1 Create a Clear Team Alignment Plan

The first and most important step involves the creation of a detailed plan. To do so, you have to consider:

• What tasks should be done and what goals should be accomplished?
• How should these tasks be completed and goals achieved?
• Where and by whom should these tasks be completed (department, team, in-house or outsourced team)?
• By when should each section of the project be finished?
• Why should it be finished? (e.g., because it impacts the later stages of the project.

A plan like this will help you build a framework in which every team member (in-house and outsourced) knows what they are responsible for, the deadlines are clear, and the chain of product development is maintained.

#2 Define a Contact Point

Communication is the cornerstone of team alignment. This is why, once you have your plan, you need to define the rules of exchanging information between different teams – both in-house and outsourced. What you need is a clear contact point (or points if multiple departments are involved) through which the information flows – specific people (e.g.,Delivery Managers at j‑labs) who have the complete overview of everything that is happening and can distribute vital information to the team members involved.

At j‑labs, we approach this at the beginning of the collaboration. After the kick-off stage, we define the rules of collaboration and communication. This way, we can ensure that our outsourced specialists are always up to date with the information provided by our clients. Read more about our approach: https://www.j-labs.pl/en/business-blog/agile-delivery-framework/

#3 Give Regular Feedback

How do you improve team alignment without regular feedback? It’s impossible. There will always be a period of friction, especially if you combine external and internal teams. Your feedback plays a crucial role in eliminating this issue: when given early on (and regularly), you can fix any misalignments or misunderstandings that still occur after the initial plan was created.

Don’t just give feedback on what is wrong – explain why you want to change the particular elements of your project and how such changes contribute to the final vision of the app or software you develop. Give context and concrete examples, but also be open to discussion – sometimes, technological limitations are the reason for changes. If you work with an outsourced team, you have to remember that it is a form of partnership: the more information you give, the better the final product will be.

Giving feedback to an external team isn’t always easy. That’s why at j‑labs you have direct access to a Delivery Manager. If any issues arise, you can rely on them for support – their role is to take care of the team’s mindset and resolve problems effectively. This is an invaluable help for managers who need to oversee both in-house and external teams.

Check out the conversation between our Head of Development and the Delivery Managers, where they talk about their role:

The Takeaway

Improving team alignment requires a detailed plan, an efficient communication channel, and regular feedback. Your role is to be a guide and a link between the teams. Therefore, you have to take into account not only what you know, but also what the other teams might not know, and fill in the gaps to ensure all parties involved work towards a common goal. At the same time, if you plan to outsource your IT project, remember to choose companies that don’t simply provide excellent expertise but also prioritize efficient communication. Looking for the latter? Contact us at j‑labs – we’ll be happy to assist you with your new, custom software development!

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