Nearshoring always sounds so easy, doesn’t it? For three years, I worked almost exclusively in such project constellations and took several important insights with me. Working with nearshoring teams requires special attention, especially on an interpersonal level. In our last blogs, we have already gone through the diselva Nearshore Excellence Framework and looked at the 4 pillars. Now it’s about how the collaboration really works. So what have I learned in recent years?
1. Involvement and empowerment vs. conducting
At this point, I can’t stress enough how important it is to see the nearshoring team not just as an extended workbench . Very often I have experienced that important project decisions as well as the setting up of the project (and possibly also the go-live) have already taken place and the project was then simply passed on as a further development project.
I see involvement as a decisive point here, not least to promote motivation. This is not to say that there should not be appropriate sparring by the local team. Especially for more junior nearshoring teams, careful coaching as well as code reviews are very much appreciated and also important. But here, too , paternalism should be avoided and cooperation and collaboration should be encouraged .
2. The importance of face-to-face meetings
Working from different locations promotes a certain anonymity and it can happen all too quickly that appreciation suffers as a result. The other person should be perceived as a person with all their emotions and idiosyncrasies and not just as an “executing machine”. With the danger of this resulting distance, it also happens more often that the resulting frustration is passed on to the team all the faster and with all its force unfiltered .
In order to counteract this as much as possible, appropriate visits and team events are to be promoted – with a focus on getting to know each other personally. The discovery of the prevailing culture should also be included. It is crucial that customers are also involved, as this has a significant impact on the project climate. Attention: Be sure to observe any travel restrictions.
To ensure that this does not go unnoticed, regular visit intervals should be introduced and prioritized. With every week that passes, the distance otherwise becomes all the greater.
3. Working language and exchange
Avoid language barriers – easier than it sounds. When working with nearshoring teams, the working language is often English. If the language skills on the customer side are not sufficient in this regard, this team combination should be dispensed with.
If a match occurs, it is important to provide appropriate communication vessels . Casual conversation with colleagues over coffee does not exist in these constellations and therefore it is all the more important that daily updates take place and, if possible, are not always strictly limited to work. The updates should also take place as video calls with the camera switched on instead of phone calls.
Regular feedback is also important – in agile setups, this can also be done with the help of review meetings after the end of the respective sprint. The mood within the team, as well as among the customer, and corresponding expectations should also be discussed.
And last but not least, and always neglected – documentation, documentation, documentation…
4. Bulwark function, but why?
In my work as a Product Owner Consultant, I often took on a certain bulwark position. Since, as described above, a certain devaluation takes place very quickly (both by customers and internally), unfiltered “affect criticism” very quickly ends up with the nearshoring team and, in the worst case, leads to a further reduction in appreciation. If you rarely see each other, it is all the more difficult to put this into perspective and classify it personally.
My goal was therefore often to act as a single point of contact for the customer and to convey the criticism I received to the team in a correspondingly differentiated way. Constructive instead of destructive is the motto here.
5. Last but not least – self-care
While I was in this role in my old job, I worked almost exclusively with nearshoring teams and therefore often had very little contact with my local colleagues . To ensure that you don’t get lonely here, it is important to make and maintain local contacts. From a professional point of view, it also makes sense to exchange ideas again and again with people who are facing roughly the same challenges, even if they are working on other projects.
With this in mind – Good luck getting to know the team. These years have given me a lot of beautiful moments and I was able to meet incredibly great people – I can therefore only recommend to go this way as well. Don’t forget: Be nice to each other, no matter what setup, otherwise it won’t 😉 with the success of the project
What else is needed?
The next step is to ensure that the technological integration is also right. Because without the right tools and a smooth infrastructure, nothing works when working with remote teams. But don’t worry, it doesn’t have to be complicated. In our next blog, we’ll show you how the technology onboarding of nearshoring teams works really well with the right technologies. And if support is needed – we are of course ready to help with our expertise and get the whole thing on the right track right from the start.