How to successfully manage a dedicated team in Eastern Europe

Eastern Europe is one of the most popular destinations when it comes to hiring dedicated teams. Teams in the region are cost-effective, highly skilled, and have compatible time zones with Europe and other regions. This article explains how to successfully manage a dedicated team in Eastern Europe and get the best results. There are few technologies like .NET, Python, Front-end, Mobile, etc.

It talks about how important it is to set up communication channels, have milestones, and use agile methodologies to get successful results. We gathered this information after interviewing Juliya Shmatok, Head of Recruitment at Chudovo.

Set up communication channels

Your first job should be to set up clear communication channels. Dedicated development teams typically use tools like Microsoft Teams and Slack to communicate with their clients. Using these tools helps you bring everyone under the same platform and communicate effectively. Professional teams often offer daily or weekly reports.

If you assing a project to a team, you should always track the team’s progress. When you assign a project to a service provider, make sure that you lay the ground rules for communication and responsiveness. Dedicated teams should have low response times as they work only with one client at a time.

Set milestones for your project

One of the biggest problems when working with dedicated offshore teams is time management. Instead of asking for one deadline, make sure you ask the development team to break down the project timeline into simple goals. This will help your project stay on track and let you know in advance if there are any expected delays. They can happen due to bugs, feature changes, or other issues. Try to set achievable milestones, even if the development team runs into potential problems. This will help you to have more realistic expectations and make room for any changes in your project.

Ensure you evaluate all of the progress after every milestone. This helps avoid miscommunication and keeps your team accountable. If developers consistently fail to complete milestones on time, you should communicate with them and see where the problem is and how to resolve it, to bring the project back on track.

Understand Eastern Europe’s culture

Communication goes both ways, and you should be aware of Eastern Europe’s culture. Different countries in Europe have different work ethics and cultures. Some Eastern European countries promote direct communication and pragmatism, which might come off as rude if you are not used to the culture.

You should also familiarize yourself with the local holidays and traditions. It would be better to give your team flexible schedules during cultural festivals and other important days. By showing that you care about your team’s culture, this motivates them and gets better results.

Use agile methodologies

One of the advantages of working with Eastern European companies is that they are already familiar with Agile principles like Kanban and Scrum. Agile frameworks help developers and project managers break down projects into “sprints.” These are essentially simple milestones within a project that developers have to complete within a given time. Simplifying a project into smaller modules helps developers complete projects much more efficiently.

One of the most important elements of agile frameworks is continuous feedback. You can use tools like Asana, Jira, and GitHub Projects to monitor code and offer feedback to your team. It helps reduce bugs and other issues and ensures your team fixes any potential issues efficiently. All of this is possible only when both you and your developers maintain full transparency when working together.

Give your team autonomy

While it is important to monitor your dedicated development team and give continuous feedback, you should also give our developers autonomy. Experienced developers know what you expect of them, and they need some autonomy to give you the best results. If you try to micromanage your team, you will only end up with worse results. Let the team leaders or project managers in your dedicated development team take initiative and plan your project.

When you assign a project, make sure that your team is part of the product discussions. By making your developers feel like they are part of a shared goal, you can boost involvement and get better results.

Set security and compliance

Security and compliance should not be a problem when working with Eastern European teams. They are already familiar with the GDPR standards, which makes it easy to establish security and compliance protocols. Despite their expertise, you should still outline how your developers handle data. Make sure that you communicate through secure channels with proper controls. If you are working with sensitive data, you should talk to legal experts and have a plan in mind for how to keep your data safe.

The confidentiality agreements are a necessity if it is relevant for your business. Similarly, you should also establish IP ownership and liability agreements. While mutual trust is important, you have to have formal agreements to protect your data.

Team building activities

Team-building exercises are not for in-house teams alone. Hosting virtual chat sessions and talking to your team helps you to build a sense of trust between you and your developers. Ask for feedback on your management skills from the team members and see how you can make them more comfortable.

You can host online game shows or have coffee breaks together. You can even consider hosting hackathon competitions for your team with prizes. Learning more about your team’s culture and engaging in meaningful conversations is all it takes to build stronger relationships with remote teams.

Conclusion

If you want to successfully manage a dedicated team in Eastern Europe, you have to use strong leadership and empathy. When working with developers, try to give them all the support they need and trust their abilities. Treat them as partners and listen to any feedback they have. You get the best results when you treat others with respect. But don’t forget to monitor all milestones and give feedback to help your developers improve and deliver your project on time. With the right communication and management practices, you make your remote team feel like an extension of your business.