Bringing together a team of the best developers, testers, designers, and others to develop a product today is neither easy nor inexpensive.
That is where remote product development comes into play. It enables you to gather the best talent from around the world, form a team, and develop your product faster, cheaper, and with higher-quality codes.
Working with remote product development is more than a passing fad or the “future of work.” It is the current and unchanging reality! The operation of any modern workplace, particularly in unprecedented times such as the present.
If you also have a product idea that you want to develop into a full-fledged product that meets all of your expectations (quality, budget, performance, time, etc.), assembling a product development team is essential and, with talent scattered around the world, remote product development is the ideal solution for supercharging your digital product.
You can outsource your entire project to a top-tier product development firm, hire a single product developer, or build your own remote product development team.
The product is yours, as is the option. But first, let’s take a closer look at what remote product development entails.
Why Remote Development
We’ve all heard of getting a product developed by a developer, a full product development team, or a product development company in another region.
The majority of people who benefit from remote product development are:
- An entrepreneur with limited resources looking for product developers or a high-powered product team.
- A product company seeking to upgrade its existing product and infuse it with cutting-edge technology.
- A company intends to rapidly digitise its operations and offerings with a digital product.
- Or any other company looking to expand into the international market and in need of a product development company in the region to help them better understand the culture and market.
- A startup seeking a technical co-founder or a technology partner to assist with the product’s technical aspects.
Remote product development can provide significant benefits and help you gain a competitive advantage in the market.
Each organization gains its own set of benefits, but the bottom line is that remote product development is becoming a reality.
If you’re still not convinced, here are some of the reasons why most businesses are turning to remote product development, and why you should too.
- Controlled Cost
- Expanded Capacity & Capability
- Multidisciplinary Perspective
- Shorter Time To Market
- Capitalize On Latest Tech
Hiring Remote Team
We know that remote product development can have various benefits. But the question is how do you find the right team that could work on your product.
With an in-house team, you can meet them in person and assess whether they would be a good fit for your company, its work culture, and other factors. However, assembling a remote team for product development can be difficult.
So, to find a remote development team that will stick with your project until it is completed, you should always?
- Adopt A Holistic Approach to Interviews
- Assign A Test Project
- Check-out The Soft Skills
- Learn About Flexibility of Remote Team
Getting Started
It is not rocket science to develop remotely. The process is very similar to that of product development in your own office; the only difference is that it takes place in a remote location. However, when it comes to remote product development, you can take one of two approaches:
- End-to-end Product Development
- Onboarding Into Existing Project
So, let us discuss each of these approaches separately in order to provide you with a guided approach to building your next product remotely.
End To End Product Development
The first step is when you are starting from scratch. You have a product idea in mind and are looking for end-to-end product development.
In this case, you collaborate with a software outsourcing company to manage the entire product.
Here’s the gist of the complete development approach that takes place when you hand over your product for complete development from the ground up.
#Step1. Ideation & Analysis
Before beginning any product development project, the first step is to understand and analyze the product idea.
After you and your remote team have discussed the product idea, they will brainstorm together to pool their expertise.
The product owner, developers, QA teams, UI/UX experts, technology experts, and other team members collaborate to generate new ideas and add innovation to the product.
You can get some out-of-the-box ideas for your product that will increase its innovation potential.
Set up virtual meetings and have them share all of their ideas on a virtual sharing board to help them brainstorm more effectively.
#Step2. Market Research
To make your product more market-fit, the entire remote product team analyses market demand, competition, and the latest market trends.
It also allows for the identification of opportunities and a different way of thinking about the product in order to foster creativity and innovation.
An astute product development team would begin by determining your product’s needs in the target market and identifying new opportunities.
It can advise you on what new features to add to your product based on the needs of your buyer personas.
The proper market research gives validation to your ideas through feedback from the target audience. It helps you gain an edge over the competitors with your latest product development.
#Step3. Creating a Product Roadmap
To make your product more market-fit, the entire remote product team analyses market demand, competition, and the latest market trends.
It also allows for the identification of opportunities and a different way of thinking about the product in order to foster creativity and innovation.
It will assist you in staying on track with the process, which can be overwhelming at times.
The remote product development team would create a roadmap that included stories, themes, epics, features, timelines, and other important information.
To keep things clear, it could have the planned, in-progress, and completed sections, as well as work assigned to each member in different colors.
#Step4. Selecting the Best Technology Stack
The next step in any remote product development team’s process is to choose the best technology.
With so many new technologies, frameworks, and versions of existing technologies being released on a daily basis, it may be difficult to determine which one is appropriate for the type of product you have in mind.
The team evaluates a variety of factors in order to find the best technology.
- They go through the product requirements, features, and implementations that might be needed
- Cost of the developer for that technology
- Time to find technology resource
#Step5. MVP Development
Instead of spending your entire budget and resources on a product that will not receive customer approval, a prototype can provide product-market validation.
An MVP, or minimum viable product, is a stripped-down version of your product that includes only the essential features needed to tell your business model.
Many startups, such as Uber, Airbnb, Spotify, and Facebook, develop their MVP first and then grow to become market leaders.
With an MVP or product prototype, you can launch a product faster and with a lower budget, and test it on early adopters.
Instead of spending your entire budget and resources on a product that will not receive customer approval, a prototype can provide product-market validation.
An MVP, or minimum viable product, is a stripped-down version of your product that includes only the essential features needed to tell your business model.
#Step6. Final Product Development
This is the stage at which your product prototype is transformed into a fully functional product that is ready to engage, delight, and sell.
The remote team works tirelessly on the prototype, adding new features, integrating it with the most recent functionalities, and making it more user-friendly.
The UI-UX teams, programmers, project managers, technical writers, and other architects and engineers collaborate to create a remote product that exceeds your expectations.
It is critical that the team implements agile product development practices in order to deliver a product that has gone through multiple iterations in accordance with the sprints.
This phase includes the addition of any new features to the product, as well as the addition of APIs. The product development process is divided into sprints.
Each sprint has its own set of goals and objectives that must be met by the end of the time limit (usually 2 weeks).
This development phase necessitates daily or weekly collaboration with the remote product development team (as per the level of involvement you want).
Not only is the product iterated based on your feedback, but it is also rigorously tested by the remote product development team’s QA and testing engineers to ensure quality and performance.
#Step7. Delivery & Promotions
Many people believe that once a product is developed, the hard work is done. However, this is far from the truth. You can’t expect a product to succeed unless it’s properly launched and marketed to your target market.
Whether you created a product for internal use or intend to market it to a wider audience, the appropriate mode of delivery is what distinguishes the product.
You can either collaborate with your marketing and sales stakeholders on the remote product development team or delegate this work to some remote marketers.
Many companies will even provide a marketing team to promote your product before it is released. This gives you a head start because these teams can work together to learn about your product and market it more effectively.
Also Read: How to Get 100% Performance of Your Remote Software Development Team
Onboarding Onto An Existing Project
Many businesses have already begun the process of developing new products. However, they require a team of experts to complete the development in the middle of their project.
It could be scaling the product, developing a full-fledged product from an MVP, or any other requirement. Working with a product development outsourcing company can help you skyrocket your product and build a successful product faster.
#Step1. Define What You Want
The first step in having your product developed by an outsourcing product development company is to have a discussion about it.
Before you jump on the bandwagon, you should define exactly what you want from the remote team. Once development begins, everyone must be on the same page or everything will become haphazard.
- Have a clearly defined scope
- Brief them about the business objectives
- Clearly tell them the requirements
- Share the expected outcome from the project
It is critical to have a clearly defined scope so that both parties understand the services. To avoid miscommunication, create a written proposal and a clear outsourcing contract.
You can go through your product development roadmap and state the stage you are at so that the project can be transferred to the outsourcing vendor.
#Step2. Knowledge Transfer
The company with which you collaborate must become acquainted with your project and the progress it has made thus far.
When bringing on a new team for product development, knowledge transfer is critical. Define the individuals who will transfer and receive knowledge.
The existing CTO, project manager, or scrum master may be required to transfer project knowledge.
#Step3, Project Continuation
When onboarding a remote product development company for your product, the first two steps are critical.
Once you’ve clearly defined your expectations and shared your knowledge with the team, you can begin working on product development.
They can take over product development from where you have defined in the roadmap and assist you in bringing your idea to life.
You can count on the remote development company to bring expertise to the table and put their best foot forward in order to turn your concept into a full-fledged product.
Product delivery, launch, promotion, and marketing would proceed in the same manner as described above in the end-to-end product development process.
Once the product is successfully launched, the remote product development team maps user behavior and collects user feedback so that the development team can continue to improve the product and add new features as your users expect.
Conclusion
Companies are looking for remote partners to fulfill their product development requirements as remote working has become the new norm.
Classic Informatics is a digital agency and global web development firm that has delivered products for startups, enterprises, SMEs, and product companies in industries such as healthcare, government, travel, sports, and fintech, among others.
We can work with you on remote product development! We have the expertise of product developers and the experience of project managers working together in an agile manner to deliver high-quality products that our clients adore.
Many businesses outsource product development to us in order to get a fully functional product in a timely manner.
We can be your remote product development partners! You can get end-to-end product development from us, hire a single developer or designer for your product, or put together your own dream team of developers, designers, project managers, testers, technical writers, and so on.