Businesses of all sizes are increasingly outsourcing the development of new PHP web applications in an effort to capture the advantages of a robust, scalable, and feature rich application at a lower cost. No matter you are building e-commerce platform, a content management system (CMS) or a complex enterprise application, PHP is very flexible, performant and scalable. Yet after all, outsourcing PHP development has its own challenges.
In this step by step guide, we will walk you through how to outsource PHP web development process covering everything from selecting a right partner to managing the PHP development project to making sure that the project is a success.
- So define your project scope and requirements first.
A well defined project scope is to be defined before you even start looking for a remote PHP development team. Not only does this help you communicate effectively with a potential partner but it also will help make sure that your expectations line up with what the developers can deliver.
Key Questions to Answer:
What is the purpose of the project?: Now, are you looking to create a website, a web application, an e commerce platform or a content management system?
What features are required?: Now build a exhaustive list of features want you need to have for example user authentication, payment gateways, admin dashboards, API integrations, etc.
Which PHP frameworks will you use?: Which PHP framework do you prefer, Laravel, Symfony, Zend or another? This will guide you here in deciding on what kind of skill set you will need from your PHP developers.
What is the timeline?: Specify what deadlines your project has. If you miss your schedule marks, give yourself some maneuvering room.
What is your budget?: A clear budget helps narrow down your options and ensures you won’t be ‘wasting’ time doing business with developers that are too expensive for you.
- Select the Right Outsourcing Partner and Research
After that, you should be able to start hunting for the suitable PHP development partner once you have created the scope and requirements. Outsourcing a project is no easy feat; finding the right team is the most important step to ensure that your project reaches success.
Where to Find PHP Developers:
Freelance Platforms: Instead of setting up your own team, you can go ahead and hire an individual or a PHP development agency through websites such as Upwork, Toptal, and Freelancer. You can filter by rate (hourly), expertise, client reviews or a combination of these.
PHP Development Agencies: If you need a team of full cycle of PHP developers, project managers, designers and quality assurance specialists, it would be better to hire an agency. Agencies for the most part have better project management and a more structured flow of work.
Referrals and Networking: You can also ask your colleagues or fellow business owners who have outsourced their PHP development. When trusted sources refer you, you can save time and effort.
Online Communities: Check out the online communities that developers use to share their work, such as, GitHub, Stack Overflow, and LinkedIn. It’s a good way to see their skills in action.
Key Factors to Consider When Choosing a Partner:
Experience and Expertise: It then asks you to find a team or individual that has experience in PHP development and has proven it. Request for their portfolio of previous projects and see to it that they have the experience with the PHP frameworks you went with.
Technical Skills: Make sure developers have technical skills that requerired: PHP frameworks (Laravel, Symfony, and etc.), database (MySQL, PostgreSQL), and others related tech (JavaScript, HTML, CSS).
Reputation and Reviews: Find reviews or testimonials from past client reviews. Search the internet, and their work can be praised on platforms like Clutch, Upwork, or TrustPilot.
Communication Skills: Effective communication is important because since you will be working remotely. Ensure that your team is enabling you to communicate in your preferred language, and can clearly explain project progress.
Cultural Fit: Since remote teams can get from anywhere in the world, it’s essential for them to get to know your company culture and working style.
- Set Clear Expectations and then Sign a Contract
Having selected the correct development partner, it is time to push this agreement through into formality and set clear expectations. Here you will indicate the limit and deadlines, peculiarities of monetary transactions as well as other details of agreement of the project in a legally binding agreement.
Key Elements to Include in the Contract:
Scope of Work: Clearly state the tasks, the milestones and deliverables. Don’t leave any ambiguity as to whether the features and functionalities that will be created.
Timeline and Milestones: Plan your deadline for the project and have a plan of your work flow or plan at design, development, testing and launch. Break down the whole timeline into smaller milestones and you can track your progress.
Payment Terms: Decide how will you be paid and how often (hourly, fixed rate or on milestone). There is a standard that you make a 20-30% up front payment with the rest due upon provision of milestones or final product.
Confidentiality and NDA: Non-disclosure shall be included with a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) in order to protect any sensitive information concerning your business and intellectual property, or customer data.
Quality Assurance and Testing: Determine the quality control process and tie down the types of test to do (unit test, user acceptance testing, performance test, etc.).
Post-Launch Support: Confirm if outsourcing partner will take care of construction, delivery of updates, fixes of the bugs etc. after the project completion.
- Inculcate setting up Communication and Project Management Channels.
Since you are outsourcing the PHP web development, you need to ensure that there is clear communication channel. A common result of miscommunication in the business world is delays, misunderstandings, and even complete project failure.
Tools for Effective Communication:
Slack or Microsoft Teams: They provide a quick and real time communication with development team.
Trello, Asana, or Jira: Use task, milestone and deadline tracking project management tools. They offer transparency, and accountability.
Zoom or Google Meet: Have scheduled video calls to discuss project updates, concerns etc, and gain intimacy in remote working.
GitHub or GitLab: Collaborating on the code in the code is achieved using version control systems. It will help you review code changes, keep track of progress.
Tips for Effective Communication:
Set Regular Check-ins: Video call weekly or bi weekly to check if the project is on plan.
Be Specific and Detailed: While talking about the requirements, should narrate all the details so that there shouldn’t be any misunderstanding. This includes wire frames, user flows and examples.
Encourage Transparency: Build an environment of sharing, where folks in remote team feel comfortable with progress updates, challenges and questions.
Time Zone Management: Consider time zone difference when arranging a meeting or two. World Time Buddy can be a useful tool to find overlapping working hours, so you can really work together live.
- Track Progress, and give feedback.
As the development process is a forward process it is important to monitor progress and deliver timely feedback. If you remain involved in this process, issues are solved earlier and the final product is what you expect.
Ways to Monitor Progress:
Request Regular Demos: Ask for working demos or incrementals each at each milestone. It lets you watch the application adjust and give feedback.
Use Testing Environments: If you cannot deploy to production then ask the development team to set up a testing environment where you can view new features before they go live.
QA and Bug Fixing: In development phase make sure to do quality assurance (QA) testing, so bugs and issues are detected and fixed because upgrading suddenly a system in production can lead to issues. Tell the development team to put an extensive test on code in every stage.
Provide Timely Feedback: Make your feedback prompt and clear. As a result of this, the development team can revise the scope of the project without delaying the project timeline.
- Launch and Post-Launch Support is provided for DASA.
Once the development phase has completed and the application has been tested well, it’s virtually ready for launching. The project doesn’t end there however.
Post-Launch Checklist:
Monitor Performance: Once you launch the site or the application, then keep an eye on the performance, to make sure everything is running fine and users are not getting problems.
Address Bugs and Issues: Bugs are normal after launch. Make sure to have the remote team ready for the bug fixes, troubleshooting etc.
Plan for Future Updates: If, and as, your business starts to grow, you might require more features or optimizations. Communication lines always remain open with your remote PHP development team so that, you shall have help for the future too.
Evaluate Performance: After the project has launched, learn about teamwork, quality of work, daily communication of your outsourcing partner. It will indicate whether you’d like working with them on your future projects or not.
Conclusion
If you are a business on the lookout for accessing top talent, saving costs and accelerating your development timeline, outsourcing PHP web development can be an extremely effective strategy. But planning and good communication are the things that matter. With well defined project requirements, a right partner, efficient communication management and participation in whole process can guarantee that your PHP web development project would be successful.
Now having these tools to confidently outsource your PHP development project, you can kick-off your journey to high quality delivery that matches your business goals.