Remote work has advantages, including financial ones. For example, there is no need to spend money on office rent. Therefore, the number of remote workers is growing steadily. Before you start looking for a React Native consulting company, let’s talk about the ways you can control the development.
Why do you need to control remote developers?
The concept of remote work has been developed by Jack Nilles in 1972. He argued that it is not at all necessary to keep all the staff in the office to be productive.
Hiring outsourcing teams and individual React Native developers, especially in the IT field, became very common practice for a long time. And developers specializing in cross-platform development, in particular, those ones who use React Native, are not an exception.
Hiring a close-knit development team, of course, carries significantly fewer risks than hiring an individually working candidate. But if one React Native developer is enough to complete your tasks, then the correct preliminary agreements and competent control of the progress of tasks will help you get the desired result.
How and what about to negotiate at the beginning
Evaluate realistically whether it is possible to perform in a completely remote format those functions that you want to entrust the employee, and what will be required to organize this work.
Are you considering the option of remote work for a certain period / one project or are you looking for a team for a long-term cooperation? In the second case, it will probably not be superfluous to get to know the remote React Native developers in person.
In the age of modern communication technologies, it is always possible to organize a teleconference, using Zoom or other services for rallies. It could be very helpful for the overall flow of the project and the most fruitful results, for both you and a person who will develop your React Native app.
When it comes to cross-platform development, using React Native framework, it would be most reasonable for you not just to browse the previous projects of the chosen dev team and read reviews of previous customers but also personally test the quality and performance of the developed applications.
Specify with your future remote React Native developers what an exact amount of work they have done personally in the particular completed project. As far as it happens, a React Native developer adds a completed JavaScript project to the resume, in which he developed only a super tiny part of the functionality.
Organization of the remote work process. How to do it the best way?
The difficult decision to choose a team or an individual developer for your React Native project is behind. Now it is important to properly organize a productive workflow.
A few steps to do this:
- Regulate the ways of communication
Decide how you will give feedback. With the right communication, staff will know if construction is progressing in the right direction, and you will understand how to ensure discipline among remote workers.
- Establish timing of feedback
Set clear rules on what days and at what time the team will communicate with each other, with you, or with other leaders. For example, arrange video meetings 2 times a week, discuss successes, stages of work, and remind the due dates of assignments, share tips. Effective interaction between you and your remote React Native developer is the glue for establishing a sense of responsibility in employees.
- Consider the control methods
You can control remote employees in different ways. Typically, employees are set quantitative and qualitative indicators or given specific amounts of work, which are calculated for a day, month, week, etc.
- Formulate tasks clearly
Do not formulate vague tasks like ‘simply create something beautiful’. Try to prepare something clear, because your vision of ‘beautiful’ may differ from the one your React Native developer has.
- Be ‘a good guy’
No matter what time of day the work on your project is going on (after all, the developer may be in a different time zone), you can always agree on certain hours for discussion of issues convenient for everyone. The main thing is to provide employees with technical tasks and set deadlines. The material incentive system will add additional motivation to your team.
- Be ‘a bad guy’
If employees miss deadlines, use a system of penalties, which you discuss in advance with subordinates. But use it only if the delay was objectively the fault of the remote React Native developers.
Regulation of methods and terms of communication
Working remotely, the team needs a tool to communicate with each other indefinitely. Email is not the only good option, so you should choose a means of communication for a faster response.
What services can be used to conduct online rallies:
- Zoomis a handy video conferencing program.
- Skype allows group video calls up to 50 people. It can be useful when it is necessary to share the screen at a meeting.
- Hangouts— the max amount of conversational members in calls is up to 10 people. Here you also can share the screen, if necessary.
- Google meet, this service can be used if you have access to a paid account.
- Messengers: Slack, Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp or Telegram. You can create channels, chats, and conduct video calls.
Bug tracking systems will help you issue clear tasks, monitor the progress of their solution, receive information about the results, and also inform the developer about the problems detected.
Most popular bug-tracking services:
- JIRA: a fee-paying system in which you can follow the process of solving tasks and control the process of their implementation on the project. It is also a very handy project management tool, especially for cross-platform developing teams.
- Trello: this system was originally designed to manage small group projects. It is also frequently used as a project management system. Projects are distributed on boards that look very visual. The system also has the ability to create checklists.
- MANTIS: compared to other bug tracking systems, this is a fairly simple tool. It is available both as a web application and in a mobile version. This bug tracker allows you to integrate applications such as chat, time tracking, RSS feeds, and more.
- Redmine: an open server web application for task management, including bug tracking.
This bug-tracker is free, open-source, and its interface is quite simple.
Technological solutions allow you to track how long your employees are actually working.
Programs and applications for remote control of employees. Pros and cons.
If the work on your project involves the full-time attention of employees, or your developer is charged by the hour, it may make sense to think about programs for remote control of the computer activities.
Here is the list of the top-10 time-tracking software.
You could explore their functions and choose which one perfectly suits your needs. But let’s firstly observe the common pros and cons of such type of control. So you can decide if you need it in general or not.
Pros:
- the ability to identify unscrupulous employees
- automatic registration of violation of agreements
- enhancing the level of workers’ discipline
- tracking all actions to goal’s achievement
- allows you to analyze the workload of each employee
Cons:
- the most reliable software is usually paid. You will have to acquire and implement a time control system first
- not all React Native developers agree to work under the pressure of tracking systems, which significantly reduces the choice of a remote React Native developer for an employer
- workers could feel uncomfortable, being tracked, which will affect their productivity
- even if the developer agrees to your terms, the fact of tracking will most likely affect the rate of his work
Time tracking soothes employer anxiety. But, perhaps, it makes sense to control not the development process, but the results.
Result control. Budgets and deadlines.
At the end of the day, a remote React Native team or single React Native developer is beneficial to both sides of an employment relationship. An employer can save a significant amount of money on rent and health insurance, and employees — their time. The main thing is to correctly organize the process of mutual interaction between you and your remote React Native developers. Only in this case projects and tasks will be completed on time and with minimal losses.
Taking a decision to hire remote React Native developers, you’re getting an opportunity to choose the most experienced professionals around the world for a reasonable budget.
A thoughtful approach to hiring experienced remote React Native developers and organizing the interaction process will help you get a high-quality product, within the deadlines.
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