Although PHP is currently one of the most popular server side scripting languages used for Web development, and is responsible for running from small websites to dynamic web application. If you are looking to create a PHP based website or application but do not have in house PHP development resource or expertise you should outsource PHP development.
Outsourcing PHP development gives you access to talents from across the globe, lowers your costs, and can quickly speed up your project timeline without compromising during quality. To successfully maximize the benefits of outsourcing you need, however, to understand the process, potential risks and how to choose the right partner.
In this blog post, we will take you through all aspects of outsourcing PHP development from assessing your project needs until managing an outsourced development team.
Step 1: First, you define your project requirements.
One of the first things that you need to do before you even begin finding yourself a development partner is to clearly figure out the project requirements. Having a well defined project scope helps you pick the right outsourcing partner, to keep the development process on track, and avoid the potential of miscommunication.
Key Points to Define:
Project Scope: Which PHP based application or website you require? Is it a custom build web application, an e commerce site, a content management system (CMS), anything else?
Key Features: Enumerate on the must have features of your website or application (user authentication, database integration, API connection, payment gateway, etc)
Timeline: When will your project be delivered? Set major milestones and deadlines for an overall launch of your product, or mentioning the launch of particular features.
Budget: Make clear what would the project budget be. A well defined budget will help you identify a partner who can work within your financial limitations but capable of delivering the value you’re looking for.
Tech Stack: If PHP will be your primary language, think about what frameworks (or Laravel, Symfony, or CodeIgniter) or tools will be needed for your project.
Your outsourcing search is based on a comprehensive project document that includes all of the above requirements, so that both you and your developer know at the start of the process what they are both trying to accomplish.
Step 2: Doing simple research and shortlisting PHP development companies may prove to be a solution.
So now when you have your project requirements available, it’s time to start searching for potential PHP development outsourcing partners. You need to find the right partner to the success of your project because they won’t only do the technical part but also the part of guiding the project from its beginning through the end.
Things to Consider When Shortlisting Providers:
Experience with PHP and Relevant Frameworks: Search for companies or freelancers with a good PHP development projects’ portfolio. At the same time, they should be experienced with popular PHP frameworks like Laravel, Symfony, Yii or Zend (depending on your project specific requirements).
Client Reviews and Testimonials: Make sure to check if there’s feedback from previous clients. Reviews and testimonials can tell you if the developer is reliable, does he do good work, and if he’s able to meet deadlines, etc.
Communication Skills: When you have an outsourced team, there’s nothing more important than clear communication. Make sure the development company has a good communication strategy, is reactive and has a team that is fluent in the language you talk in.
Location: Whichever preference you have, you can select a team from any part of the world. Companies hiring offshore developers from places like India, Ukraine or Philippines are able to get the job done at a lower price, and companies hiring nearshore developers from places like Eastern Europe or Latin America can take advantage of similar time zones and cultural compatibility.
Technical Proficiency: Assess how great the team is in PHP and other similar technologies. They know and have experience in database management, web security and API integrations? It is important that you should have a deep understanding of the full web development stack to develop a strong PHP application.
Development Methodology: Ensure that the outsourcing team runs Agile Development practices. Like Scrum and Kanban, agile methodology, in order to succeed, should allow for iterative development, flexibility, and regular feedback during the process.
Step 3: Interview, And Assess Technical Competence
After choosing and narrowing it down to a few potential PHP development outsourcing partners, the next thing you’ll need to do is to interview or have a meeting with them. Now it’s time to actually evaluate these developers, and it’s important that you check their technical skills, assess how good their communication is, and establish whether or not their skills are a good match for your project.
Questions to Ask During the Interview:
Experience with PHP and Frameworks: “Can you come up with examples of PHP projects you have done, and projects where you have worked with frameworks such as Laravel or Symfony?”.
Project Approach: It is a question of ‘how do you approach a project from a concept to deployment’.” Tell me, is there any process through it?”
Technical Challenges: “What technical challenges have you conquered while developing a PHP application?”
Quality Assurance: How do you test and assure quality of the code base? And if you think about it, this is indeed one of the most critical challenges: how do you make sure the code is both secure (or shouldn’t be) and that the code is bug free?
Team Structure: “What roles will their be and who will be working on my project?” “Will I have one person that I get to know as my single point of contact for the entire duration of the project?”.
Maintenance and Support: “Have a question about the car, what kind of post launch support and maintenance does the car offers?”
At this stage, you will also be able to test a very small PHP coding task or problem related to your project and test their technical skills. That will help you know their expertise and how they will approach solving real world problems.
Step 4: Make Sure Everyone Communicates and Knows What Project Management Protocol to Follow
A successful outsourced PHP project depends on effective communication. Next, set up communication plan dictates the frequency and way the project is updated, tools for collaboration and the definition of the fate of the issues.
Communication Tips:
Project Management Tools: Track project progress, assign tasks, and communicate with your team using tools like Trello, Asana, Jira or basecamp.
Regular Updates: Conduct a plan on regular project updates (weekly or biweekly) regarding progress, roadblocks and future deliverables.
Time Zones: Take into consideration of time differences and meet only when it’s convenient to both side. This is one reason good communication suggests that you should be flexible on both ends.
Document Everything: Maintain detailed records of what project requirements, feature lists, timelines and change. For collaborative documentation use Google Docs or Confluence, and share with the team for transparency.
Project Milestones: Milestones with deadlines for the project. This also means both of you can monitor progress, to root out problems early, and see that the project is coming along as planned.
Step 5: As part of your negotiation phase, you need to Negotiate a Contract and Payment Terms.
After you picked your PHP outsourcing partner and shared the scope, is when you sign a contract with them. They should protect both parties and must guarantee the smooth running of the project, from start to finish.
Key Elements of the Contract:
Scope of Work: Write out specifically what you expect them to accomplish in the project, be it deliverables, deadlines and technical aspects of the project.
Payment Terms: We resolve on the way pricing should be modelled (fixed price or hourly charge) and the timetable for paying (e.g. preliminary installment, interim installments, and final installment after finishing).
Confidentiality Agreement: Naturally, since a lot of your project will involve room for sensitive data, your company must have a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) in hand to protect intellectual property.
Timeline and Deadlines: Then outline the project timeline so you can state important milestones as well as tentative delivery date for the final product.
Post-launch Support: Let you know if this will be provided by the development team once the project is live and in use.
Step 6: Keep Monitor Progress and feedback feature.
Once the project starts, it’s very important to monitor it and provide feedback quite regularly. We’ll check in with you regularly through checkpoints and status meetings to make sure that the project is on track with what you need and when you need it.
Tips for Effective Monitoring:
Stay Involved: You may even outsource, but stay engaged. Make it a habit to check the progress and provide feedback to ensure the final product is what you envisioned.
Test Early and Often: During development, it’s critical to test in order to surface problems early on. Once you have solidified your ideal customers, request regular demos to provide feedback on what features and functionality are really necessary for your business.
Be Open to Suggestions: Even though you may have a good idea, the development team can also have a different idea. They may have better or more efficient solutions on the technical off the fronts.
Step 7: Support for launch and post launch.
Having completed the development phase and the project is ready to be launched, it’s time to make a smooth transition of the project from development phase to marketing phase. Test the PHP application well.
Post-launch Support:
Bug Fixes: Any mug fol has its bugs or issues after launch. Ensure that your outsourcing partner gives you a warranty period during which he will fix any issues that come up.
Maintenance: To keep your PHP application secure and up to date, you need to maintain it i.e. get security patches, updates and go on to add new features.
Scaling: On the other hand, if your project grows very large, will expect to scale the app, which we may also need additional development. Make this process seamless with your outsourced team.
Conclusion
What PHP Outsourcing Can Do for You: You can save time and money while having a high quality, high scalable web application built. But to be successful you need to decide what you want to build before selecting the right partner and making sure their project management and communication is strong.
Outsourcing your PHP development process becomes easy by following the step-by-step guide mentioned above as you can be sure that your project will meet both your business goal and users’ expectation. Outsourcing can be a great strategy, regardless if you’re building an e-commerce site, a custom CMS, or a SaaS product built on PHP.