If you are looking for some work-from-home productivity tips, you are at the right place. At Cosmic Development, we have practiced remote work in various formats for years and our employees are sharing their experiences and tips on staying productive.

In the past two and a half years, the way we work and live has dramatically transformed. The pandemic has normalized remote and flexible work. Cloud technology and advanced communication and collaboration tools have allowed companies to embrace remote work and reap the benefits it can bring. Instead of being a temporary pandemic measure, work from home has become a lasting feature of the modern workplace.

Despite the apparent benefits of remote work, like freedom and flexibility, no commute, a higher quality of life, and better work-life balance, working remotely is more complex than it seems and can bring many unexpected challenges. This perk can turn into a missed opportunity if not handled carefully, and you can become your own worst enemy,

Productivity is one of the biggest challenges, especially if you are new to remote work. Having that in mind, we’ve compiled a list of some essential remote working productivity tips from our employees. We also asked a few to share their personal experience in working remotely and explain how they navigate the pitfalls and ensure they stay focused, productive, and happy.

Set up a home office space that limits distraction

Whether a corner in your living room or a separate room turned into an office, it is crucial to designate an official home workspace where you can comfortably work without noise and distractions.

Create a healthy, stimulating environment that best suits your personal ergonomic and productivity needs. Keep it clutter-free and organized. Add houseplants to boost your mood, and if possible, put your desk by the window to have access to natural light because it will improve your mental alertness and focus. Invest in equipment that will enhance your performance – adjustable desks, ergonomic desk chairs, spacious monitors or laptop stands, and noise-cancelling headphones. A dedicated workspace will give a sense of legitimacy to your work environment and help you maintain boundaries between home and work life.

Define boundaries

Besides having a separate workspace where you can concentrate and minimize disruptions, it is equally important to put clear boundaries between work time and family. It can be hard to separate your work from your personal life, especially if you have children.

However, everything is possible with a little more pre-planning and communication.

Work out a schedule with your household members and inform them of your working schedule and that you are unavailable during this time. Ensure that your home office is off-limits when working and that your work does not intrude into other people’s lives. Learn to say no, because you can easily become stressed and overwhelmed by others’ demands, which will definitely affect your productivity.

The opposite is also true, setting healthy work boundaries to avoid overworking. Stick to your work schedule, do your work as best as possible, and once your work day is over, switch off, put away your work tools and enjoy your free time.

And remember – setting your boundaries is in your own hands. If you don’t respect them, no one else will either. It is a battle you’ll need to fight for yourself, but with time you’ll become a master of juggling work and family.

Set up a work schedule and maintain a daily routine

The best thing when working from home is the flexibility to establish a routine that’s ideal for you. Creating and following a work schedule will save your sanity and boost your productivity. 

Here are some steps you can follow:

• Maintain consistent working hours. Decide the time when you will start and finish working each day and commit to it. Plan for virtual meetings with others in your schedule, childcare, or any other responsibilities you may have throughout the day. Be aware that you’ll need to be flexible from time to time and that there will be exceptions to your rules. Sometimes you’ll have to give extra time to your work and sometimes to your personal life. 

• Discover your most productive time of the day. Some people peak in the morning, others in the afternoon or night. By aligning your schedule with your peak energy times, you make it easier to focus on work when you feel the most energized and motivated, thus being more productive, focused, and quicker.

• Track your time. Time tracking can help you be more aware of how you spend your time during the day and how much time you spend on each assigned task. This practice will give you valuable insights into your productivity and help you find ways to improve and optimize your workflow. If you’re unsure how to do that, Forest, RescueTime, and Toggl are just some of the many time-tracking apps you can use. They will tell you how you spend your time, analyze your work trends and help you make smart decisions. 

Set priorities

Taking a proactive approach will give you a sense of accomplishment and put you in control of your day. 

One of the biggest productivity mistakes you can make is focusing on getting as many tasks as possible instead of doing the most important ones. So start by identifying your main to-do’s for the day, and qualify them by their urgency. Try the Rule of Three – a simple but effective productivity hack that requires you to focus on accomplishing only three essential goals every day. You can apply this rule not only for your day but also for your week, month, and year. Our brains are not evolved to perform multiple tasks simultaneously, so by engaging in fewer tasks, you increase your focus and are more efficient. Similar productivity methods you can also try are the Pomodoro Technique or the Zen to Done Rule. 

Take regular breaks and practice self-care

Working remotely and sitting all day can harm your body and mind. Don’t hesitate to take a break and recharge. Regular micro-break breaks throughout your working day will lower the risk of burnout, reduce stress levels, and increase overall productivity. They are good for both your physical and mental well-being. A play with your kids or pet, a short conversation, listening to music, stretching, breathing, whatever you like, as long as it is a break from screen time and gets you moving.

Incorporate self-care into your daily routine, whether that is walking in the park, regular exercise, spending time in nature, contacting loved ones, watching a good movie, reading a book, cooking a fun meal, or spending virtual social time with colleagues. These activities will lower your stress, help you relax, and clear your mind.

Stay engaged in company life

Working from home can get boring and lonely. If you feel isolated, you will not be happy or productive. Fortunately, with the technologies today, you can easily stay engaged with the team and be involved in daily company life. Stay in touch with your colleagues via Slack or similar cloud-based collaboration tools. Try video chats, participate in different events and activities and stay connected.

The Bottom Line

Working from home has many great advantages, but when it comes to productivity, it certainly has its drawbacks. It’s challenging to maintain an excellent work-life balance and stay productive. But with proper planning and the right tools and techniques, you can create space and time to be effective without letting work interfere with your personal life. 

Staying productive while working from home is different for everyone. What works for you might not work for somebody else. Find what works best for you, stay productive, and keep your head up no matter what.

Come work with us and join our team of great people!

We offer a hybrid work culture flexibility that combines the benefits of both remote and office work. Check out our current openings and learn why Cosmic Development is the right fit. 

The post Productivity Tips: How to Stay Productive While Working from Home appeared first on Cosmic Development.

PHP is an open-source back-end scripting language used for creating dynamic and interactive web pages and applications. It is one of the oldest and most widely-used programming languages for web development, with around 80% of all websites running on PHP, including major platforms like Facebook, WordPress, Upwork, and Spotify.

Though highly technical in nature, with a bit of online guidance and dedication, PHP skills can be acquired in no time. Many online sources can help you become fluent in PHP, whether you are a total beginner or want to advance your PHP skills. 

Online tutorials can be an excellent learning tool. Choosing the best to learn PHP can be the first step toward this profitable career. Here is our choice of top five tutorials that will help you to learn PHP more effectively and become a better PHP developer.

Before we move on to the list of the best tutorials, let’s first clarify why you should learn PHP in 2022.

Why Learn PHP?

Even though its popularity has declined over the years, PHP is still extensively used in web development. Efficient, flexible, simple, and easy to learn, you can create anything from a simple website to a complex web application with PHP. It’s free and open-source, supports most web browsers, and has many additional tools to assist it. Additionally, it has a large and active community of developers to learn and get help for your web development projects. 

And since there are still millions of sites built using PHP, PHP developers are always in demand, and there are many job opportunities available, both in freelancing and full-time jobs. 

1. Learn PHP by Codecademy

Learn PHP is a free 25-hour course that will teach you the fundamental programming concepts of PHP through interactive exercises, quizzes, articles, and freeform projects. This course covers everything from PHP variables and functions to PHP arrays, form validation using HTML forms, conditionals, logic, and loops, as well as more advanced lessons like classes and objects in PHP. It is suitable for beginners, though some basic HTML knowledge will be helpful before taking the course. Taking Learn PHP is an excellent opportunity for those who prefer getting directly into the code because it teaches you by actively doing coding exercises rather than just video or text tutorials. 

2. PHP for Beginners – Become a PHP Master – CMS Project by Udemy

PHP for Beginners is a great course that will take you from scratch to PHP mastery and teach you real-world PHP skills. With over 70,000 enrolled students, this is one of the most popular beginner-level PHP courses on Udemy. It’s also one of the most comprehensive PHP courses on the platform, with 38 hours of video lectures that teach you almost everything you need to know about PHP. 

PHP for Beginners is taught by an experienced engineer and mainly focuses on practical lessons instead of theory and covers various topics such as code editors and PHP basics, PHP data types, control structures, and functions. You will also learn how to create a Content Management System (CMS) and use MySQL and Object-Oriented Programming. 

Note that this course puts a lot of emphasis on using PHP in the context of CMS, so If you don’t intend to use CMS in your work, maybe this is not the right course for you. Otherwise, this is a perfect course to start learning PHP in 2022. 

3. Building Web Applications in PHP by Coursera

This PHP course by the University of Michigan on Coursera is aimed at intermediate-level students with some previous knowledge of PHP. It is instructed by Dr. Charles R. Severance, a Clinical Professor, and has very positive reviews and ratings. You can freely examine the course content, but to get full access, you need to subscribe. 

It is an excellent course for those who are interested not only in PHP but in web development as a whole. In addition to PHP, it teaches basic lessons in HTML and CSS. You will also learn the basic structure of a web app, request and response cycles, PHP syntax and data structures, and how a web browser interacts with a web server. The course also covers PHP arrays, functions, error handling, and superglobal variables. 

This course is a good mix of theoretical and practical assignments, and you’ll get weekly practical assignments.

4. Laravel PHP Framework Tutorial by FreeCodeCamp

Laravel is an open-source, back-end PHP-based framework for creating simple to complex web applications. It is free and easy to use and is one of the most popular PHP frameworks nowadays, used by thousands of developers.

Laravel PHP Framework Tutorial is a great tutorial for beginners who want to develop both PHP and Laravel skills. It was created by freeCodeCamp.org, a nonprofit organization helping people learn to code for free, and is instructed by Victor Gonzalez. You can find it on YouTube. 

During the 4.5 hours-long video tutorial, you will have an intro about Laravel and lessons on getting started with PHP coding. Then you will move on to an in-depth explanation of how to build an Instagram clone from scratch with all its built-in functionalities. The best thing about this tutorial is that you learn from a real-world project.  

Keep in mind that this tutorial can have some outdated info because it is based on Laravel 5.8. But you can quickly fix this if you go to the comment section, get help from the community members, and use Laravel 8.0 while completing the course. 

5. Object-Oriented PHP Learning by Eduonix

Eduonix Learning Solutions is an online learning and training platform and a Udemy instructor. Among many other topics, it offers online web development courses, one of which is Object-Oriented PHP Learning. This course is aimed at intermediate students with some basic knowledge of PHP. It is a great choice to get the fundamentals of both PHP and object-oriented programming and learn to build a website using both. 

Although relatively short, only 4.5 hours, this course includes understanding the concepts behind object-oriented PHP, building a complete website using classes and objects in PHP, learning about abstraction and Inheritance, and learning how to deal with RDBMS within the OOPS framework.

After finishing the course, you will get a certification of completion and free full lifetime access to all the course resources.

Summary

These tutorials offer a good starting point if you are new to the PHP world. If you are an intermediate-level PHP developer, you can use these tutorials to develop your skills further and stay ahead of the rest. 

Many great PHP courses and tutorials are available for coders of all experience levels, so choose those that best suit your needs and learning style. Just remember, learning doesn’t stop once you finish the tutorial. The best way to learn PHP is to use your skills and build something on your own. Web development technologies constantly evolve, and there’s always more to master. Never stop learning and exploring. 

Put your skills into practice at Cosmic Development.

If you are looking for a place to put your PHP knowledge into practice and work with the newest technology in the field, visit Cosmic Development’s career page. We offer free courses and training programs for our employees and a fun and stimulating work environment. Currently, we have a job opening for a Senior Software Engineer with 5+ years of experience with object-oriented PHP. Go ahead and apply. 

The post 5 Best Online PHP Courses and Tutorials to Learn PHP in 2022 appeared first on Cosmic Development.

We witness an age of amazing technological breakthroughs, increasing demand for new software, and higher customer expectations, so having a QA engineer in a software development team is becoming increasingly necessary for successful software businesses. It saves time, money, nerves, and a company’s reputation. 

Quality assurance (QA) engineers monitor every stage of the development process of a product. They oversee production, design and implement tests, debug and recommend improvements, making sure that the product operates on the highest quality level before it is released to the public.

Although some software companies take QA lightly and don’t have QA engineers in their development team, Cosmic Development is quite the opposite. We recognize the true value of quality assurance and believe that building high-quality, stable, and safe products for our clients requires a competent QA engineer. For that reason, today, we spotlight our talented Quality Assurance (QA) Engineer, Kosta Terziski, and discuss the details of his journey, day-to-day tasks, and advice he would offer to aspiring QA professionals. 

Who is Kosta?

Kosta is QA Automation Engineer. He joined Cosmic Development in 2014, and since then, he has quickly become an integral part of our development team. He plays a crucial role in Cosmic’s software development process, delivering high value to our company and clients. Apart from having enviable skills for tracking down the bugs that undermine a product’s performance and an excellent eye for detail, he is a proud father of a 4-month baby boy, Filip.

How did you join Cosmic Development, and what’s your overall experience in a few words? 

I joined Cosmic on an Internship program back in October 2014. I have been in the company ever since. It’s a fantastic experience, to say the least, considering that I have worked on many great projects with a great group of people.

Why did you opt for a career as a QA engineer?

There are numerous reasons why I opted for a career as a QA engineer. It’s challenging, valuable, creative, you are constantly learning, and most importantly, it’s in demand. Testing is not easy, and it requires excellent problem-solving skills. But I enjoy solving complex problems, looking at products from different angles, and giving developers a new perspective on their work. Each day is a new challenge and brings something new. This is not a job for those who prefer boring and simple jobs and should think twice before choosing a career path in software testing. 

Can you describe your role as a QA Engineer at Cosmic Development? What does a ‘typical’ day look like?

Coffee first. Always. And at least 15 minutes to go with that coffee of reading emails and Slack messages just to catch up on what is expected of you in the day ahead. Next in line are daily meetings, which usually don’t last longer than 15 to 20 minutes. And after that – work!

What skills did you bring to the team, and what skills have you developed since joining?

Back when I joined Cosmic, I can hardly say that I brought a lot of skills, but I can certainly say that I was a good listener. This was an opportunity for me to learn from a great group of mentors, most of whom I am still working with. Throughout the years, I have worked on many challenging projects that made me who I am today. 

Can you explain the difference between manual testing vs. automation testing? Can automation testing replace manual testing?

Automation testing will not replace manual testing. It would be best if you had both manual and automation testing skills. Manual testing handles complex test cases, while automated testing handles simpler, more repetitive tests. So, manual testing is still important. But adding automated testing makes your manual tests more efficient.

How do you keep up with the latest trends and technologies? 

Keeping up with the latest trends and technologies is important in this business line. There are numerous ways I do that: join tech forums, do my own research on the internet, and attend seminars. Plus, Cosmic provides us with access to many online learning tools and resources, and we always have the opportunity to take a course online or with a physical presence, if possible.

What advice would you give to young people keen to pursue a career as a QA engineers? 

A job in QA is rewarding and impactful. Take pride in your work and the people you work for because you are essentially changing the world for the better and making sure we live in a bug-free world. It doesn’t matter what product you’re working on. By finding and preventing errors, you are making people’s lives better, and you could even save lives. Be flexible, adaptable, and disciplined. Have patience and trust yourself. Think outside the box and pay attention to details. Be a good team player, and most importantly, never stop learning and improving. 

If you aspire to collaborate with inspiring teammates and create and support products that make a difference, we want to hear from you! See our open positions and join our team. 

The post From Beginner to Pro: What it is like to be QA Engineer in Cosmic Development appeared first on Cosmic Development.

These five strategies will improve your software development process and help you and your company get great results.

Building quality software successfully is a complex process filled with many challenges. Every developer and development team can become overwhelmed by these challenges. That is why it is crucial to address them promptly and effectively to reduce their impact on the final product.

If you want to develop a superior software product, you should have an efficient plan for every stage of the software development process. Inadequately planned and defective process may compromise the product quality and result in significant delays. Finding and implementing the best strategies to improve your software development will ensure the successful delivery of a software product and guarantee that it’s done within budget, time, and scope. 

This article will cover practical steps to help you and your team improve the software development process and optimize your work. Check out five strategies that every developer and development team should apply in their work.

Optimize Your Workflow

The development workflow is the process by which a software team manages production and includes all stages of the software development life cycle – planning, development, testing, deployment, and iteration.

Creating a clear and efficient workflow will help you achieve great results with less effort. Generally, an efficient workflow should strike a balance between speed and quality, reduce costs and increase the team’s productivity. A streamlined workflow will keep the whole team on track and enable them to operate at their peak.

But have patients, successful workflow optimization takes time and is perfected through trial and error. 

Utilize Modern Development Tools and Methodologies

Making use of the right tools and methodologies is essential. Countless tools are available on the market, and they all have the same purpose – to help you improve your workflow efficiency. 

You can implement project management methodologies like Agile, Scrum, or Kanban. They can help you efficiently complete your project and increase productivity. Also, there are numerous software development tools that come in the form of linkers, compilers, code editors, GUI designers, assemblers, debuggers, and performance analysis tools. They all perform a specific role in the software development lifecycle and help you facilitate and accelerate the different phases of software development.

Here are some examples:

• Bug tracking tools: ClickUp, BackLog and MantisBT, Marker.io
• Code management tools: Assembla, IntelliJ, GitHub, GitLab, Mercurial, Kiuwan, Storm
• Code searching tools such as The Silver Searcher, Codase
• Project management tools like Monday.com, Trello, Jira, Asana, Wrike
• Team collaboration tools like Slack, Trello, ClickUp, Microsoft Teams
• Time tracking tools like Hubstaff or Jibble

Choose tools depending on the type of project you work on. Whatever you choose, remember they will make your life easier and improve your project outcome. (even if you are not an expert in coding).

Have a Clear Definition of Done

DoD (definition of done) is a set of criteria that need to be met for an aspect of the project or a task to be considered complete. Both in terms of quality and functionality. Explicit completion criteria should be defined from the start, and it should be a collaborative effort between the development team and the stakeholders. In that way, the whole team will be aligned and follow the same objectives.

In essence, the definition of done is a checklist of all the work that team needs to do before indicating the product increment as “done” or releasable.

How will you measure it?

The specific criteria can vary depending on the team and the project. However, a typical checklist would include:

• Unit tests written and done
• Code review completed
• Peer review completed
• Acceptance criteria met
• Functional tests passed
• Non-Functional requirements met
• User story demonstrated and accepted by Product Owner 

Groom Your Backlog

Cleaning your backlog is vital for keeping the project organized. Your backlog will keep growing if you are not actively shaping it. A large backlog will lead to frustration and slow the whole process. 

What can you do?

• Prioritize Important Items
• Delete Low-Value Items
• Merge the Similar Items

Well-managed backlog comes with many benefits. It helps your team deliver features faster and keeps the project moving forward more efficiently. 

Collaborate with Team Members

Effective team collaboration is essential for successful software development projects. Whether you are working on a software project by yourself or as part of a team, working together towards a common goal and sharing high-level skills will ensure that the whole process goes smoothly, from inception to delivery.  

Working as a team has many benefits. When team members know their role and responsibility and encourage each other, efficiency and success are inevitable. It also:

• Accelerate product development
• Boosts productivity and motivation 
• Builds a sense of community
• Drives Creativity and Innovation
• Facilitates Transparency
• Increases Code Quality
• Instills Accountability
• Offers alternative viewpoints, 
• Reduces Costs
• Reduces stress
• Saves time

Don’t forget, if you want to achieve excellent performance and build a fantastic product, you must be able to cooperate with your teammates successfully. 

Conclusion

Every software development process aims to create a high-quality product that meets project requirements. Following and implementing these five strategies will optimize your software development process and increase the chances of building a top-quality product. 

The more streamlined and efficient the development process is, the better you can predict its time to market and prevent coding and other development mistakes. 

About Cosmic Development

At Cosmic Development, we believe great things happen when passion and talent combine. In our decade-long existence, we have proven that with proper planning and strategy, and with the help of technology and exemplary leadership, we can achieve excellent team productivity and efficiency and offer high-quality software solutions to our clients.

Be a part of our dedicated software development team and work on exciting projects. We’ll provide you with an environment that will let you thrive. We offer great workplace culture, perks, and excellent work-life balance. Check out our most recent job openings and apply.

The post Effective Strategies to Improve Your Software Development Process appeared first on Cosmic Development.

The Human Resources department plays a pivotal role in a company’s overall growth strategy and is an integral part of any modern-day organization. In the last years, the responsibilities of the HR department and HR managers have grown considerably, and now a professional HR department encompasses many roles and activities.

Being an HR professional requires commitment and dedication. After all, they are responsible for managing a company’s human capital, its most important asset.

Besides managing the employee life cycle like recruitment, hiring, onboarding, training and firing, employee relations, and benefits management, they are also responsible for protecting the employee’s well-being and keeping them satisfied. They also play a crucial role in shaping and reinforcing the company’s culture and creating a positive working environment while focusing on company values.

Given that many activities in the workplace are impacted by HR, a strong human resources department is the best way to ensure employee satisfaction, productivity, and future growth, thus setting the foundation for a thriving company.

The HR strategy at Cosmic Development is simple – be a high-performing company and a great place to work. Our HR team is our partner in business. They are the company’s driving force because they manage the most critical and valuable resource we have – our people.

Cosmic HR managers and other related professionals work hard together to support the needs of our employees at various stages of their careers. HR ensures that they have the right tools and resources to perform to thrive and maximize their input.  They focus on employee well–being and offer professional support in addition to compensation, benefits, career advancement, and work-life balance.

HR has always been important, but the past two years have demonstrated why it is instrumental in keeping businesses afloat. We successfully navigated the challenges in recruiting, retention, and safety and managed to assist our employees during the pandemic’s stressful circumstances.

The best way to acknowledge employees’ roles, efforts, and achievements is to celebrate them throughout the year. Today, to mark the International HR Day and recognize the hardworking and dedicated HR professionals, we will offer you a glimpse of the individuals who work hard to help Cosmic Development constantly improve, accelerate, and grow. Meet three ladies of our HR team.

Who is Marina?

Marina is a graduate economist in the accounting, finance, and audit section, but as a person who loves to work with people, her career path took her to human resources. She spends her time with her loved ones and friends, reading books, and cycling.

When you joined Cosmic Development, you had the chance to become part of a rapidly growing team with a lot going on. How was that experience? What do you love most about your job, especially here? 

Joining a rapidly growing company was challenging to do on the one hand. Still, it was like an adventure to discover and learn new things, get more professional in my experience, and meet new people. The work is very dynamic but having flexible working hours and working remotely when needed gives me the freedom to manage the tasks properly. The flexibility and the right HR team besides me are the things that I love most about my job.

Who is Liljana?  

Liljana is an IT recruiter at Cosmic Development. She has a Master’s degree in Human Resources Management and enjoys working and communicating with people. She loves encouraging employees and strives to create a happy workplace. When Liljana is not busy recruiting new talent, she enjoys spending time with her sons Matej and Luka.

Your expertise is recruitment. But what does it mean to be a tech recruiter? What traits do you need to be successful in your field?

Yes, my specialty in Cosmic is recruitment. To be a recruiter, you have to be many things. You need to be curious by nature and ask the right questions. You need to have excellent research skills and be up to date with the latest trends. You also need strong negotiation skills and be able to communicate with potential candidates effectively. People skills and knowing how to listen are essential for building relationships.

Another important thing is to be a good storyteller and tell stories that answer questions and provide the information the candidates need to decide if the company is a good fit as an employer. Storytelling is the best way to connect potential candidates with your brand and work culture and communicate what a company offers. The same skills that apply to sales marketing, like communication, strong organization and negotiation skills, and patience, apply to recruitment. You need skills to “sell” the job to the candidate and “sell” the candidate to the client. 

Who is Andriana? 

Andriana has almost five years of experience in the human resources field and has been Cosmic Development’s HR manager for the past nine months. She has a Master’s degree in Business Informatics and Management from the University of Ljubljana in Slovenia and started working for Cosmic just a few days after finishing her studies. Initially, she began as an office manager, moving to the HR assistant position, and finally, the most recent, HR manager. 

Besides her professional responsibilities and obligations, Andriana always tries to fit physical activities into her busy schedule and spends at least an hour daily doing exercise or in nature. She enjoys traveling and visiting new places. She is also an animal lover and a devoted owner of two dogs. 

What are the future company plans and goals?  

At this moment, the company is growing rapidly, and we constantly have new positions open. In the first quarter of 2022 alone, we’ve had 16 new colleagues. In fact, hardly a day goes by without communicating or interviewing potential candidates, whether for IT or non-technical job positions. That is clear evidence of the company’s growth and makes me incredibly happy.

In the future, we will continue working in the same spirit. We already have plans to continue growing our team. We also plan to make internal organizational changes and introduce new benefits. And our priority will remain the retention and encouragement of our employees.

As the main HR Manager, what’s the secret formula to making all things happen?

HR encompasses many things—from effective communication, patience, ability to analyze and see things from different angles to planning and multitasking. What’s most important for me and most challenging at the same time is establishing a healthy relationship and collaboration with the employees – which is the essence of being an HR professional. In terms of the secret formula, I would say that besides loving what you do, you’ll also need ideas and a strong will to make things happen. With thorough planning ahead, you can achieve anything.

Final Thoughts

A company is only as good as its people and the HR team is in charge of creating and maintaining a solid team. Strong HR departments help companies get the most from their people and help people get the most of the companies. They serve as the advocates for employees and help companies recruit and retain top talent to help a business succeed. That is why investing in Human Resources should be a priority of every company.

Cosmic Development succeeded in building a strong and effective HR department. Our employees can use HR to voice concerns and experiences. At Cosmic, we believe that only by working hand in hand can managers and employees build an environment that inspires and engages.

If you want to work in a thriving company that is focused on improving employee experience at each stage in the employee lifecycle and a company that offers numerous benefits and a flexible work schedule, we encourage you to check our open positions.

The post Talk with HR: Sneak Peek at Our Human Resources Department appeared first on Cosmic Development.

What started as a concept turned into multiplied success stories!

When Cosmic Development was founded back in 2011, it was based on the principle of helping businesses of various sizes grow. All by providing the best tech talent solutions tailored to every client’s needs and budget.

But that’s the one side of the story. The other and not that widespread story is that Cosmic Development has strived to establish itself as a modern and prosperous workplace from day one. 

After over a decade-long tenure, we are looking back on several inspirational employee stories at our company. 

From Tech Internships to Fulfilling Careers

From Intern to CTO – Vladimir Novachki

The story of Vladimir Novachki begins with his internship at Cosmic. For Vladimir, this wasn’t just an ordinary internship experience. He was excited that as an intern he had the opportunity to work on real applications, used by real people. After completing his internship, he was more than willing to take the job offer. Novachki had a chance to lead tech teams and work on various projects before landing the Chief Technology Officer position. For young developers, Novachki has simple advice: “Magic wands don’t exist in real life, when it comes to programming it’s really important to stay up-to-date with the newest technology. Make sure to fully dedicate yourself to continuous learning in this profession and the success is yours!” Novachki has practical ways of getting the right sources of information regarding the latest technology trends. He uses Practical Dev, Hacker News, Reddit, etc. His favorite technology stack is LEMP and he highly recommends it.

From Intern to Web Developer – Viktorija Velichkovska

This is the sixth year of Viktorija working at Cosmic. She started her career as an intern, had successful cooperation with her mentors there, and was more than willing to continue her journey with Cosmic. As a developer, she faced a lot of obstacles but managed to overcome them. Her main challenges were associated with the lack of a standardized development process. Velichkovska started to notice this phenomenon while working on projects with different teams. “Every individual has a specific work approach, which is great but has an impact on the complexity of the work, therefore it’s more time-consuming.” Instead of being discouraged, Velichkovska became more proactive. For the less experienced developers, she recommends building experience through open-source projects.

Over a Decade-Long Careers at Cosmic Development

Atanas Arizanov – Tech Coordiantor

Atanas Arizanov joined Cosmic eleven years ago. He remembers his humble beginnings as a software engineer, PHP developer, and later on tech coordinator. From the very beginning, Arizanov was well aware of the challenges that are an integral part of this industry. As a tech coordinator, Arizanov has many responsibilities including managing multiple projects, regular and consistent communication with internal teams, while simultaneously controlling the system and network performance. This job position is quite demanding, as Arizanov states “It’s a race with time.” Nevertheless, Arizanov knows that having an internal feeling of peace is the key to overcoming any job deadline. With a smile on his face, while drinking his favorite cup of coffee Arizanov shares some very interesting pieces of advice. “Make sure to organize your day in such a productive manner, that you’ll become faster and more efficient even when your projects and virtual meeting are overlapping.”

Emilija Nikoloska – BD Consultant

Emilija Nikoloska started to work for Cosmic back in 2011. At that period, the company had just started with only six employees. She worked with only one client, just like everyone else. Due to her hard work and determination, she became a Team Lead and then an Office Manager. She was quite successful in that field but strived for more. Later on, her proactive attitude and diligence brought her into the Business Consultant role. It proved to be the right fit for both parties. Nikoloska shares that she finds inspiration and limitless energy from motherhood.

Bookmark’s Success Stories

Bookmark is one of the loyal clients that Cosmic has had since the very beginning. Here are some interesting stories from some of the best employees there.

Atanas Krangov [CTO] and Petar Shokarovski [VP of Engineering]

Atanas Krangov started as a PHP developer for Cosmic ten years ago. Since then, he made a drastic step in his career and progressed to a Chief Technology Officer for Bookmark. Krangov says that it’s not a role without challenges but he most certainly likes to overcome them. He found his passion for programming at a very young age. He soon realized that he is good at solving problems, and when it comes to software development simplifying the problem means everything. Apart from his professional life, Krangov likes to spend his free time motorcycling and having some leisure time with his family.

Petar Shokarovski became part of the Cosmic family more than seven years ago. He started as a web developer with a previous experience of almost 12 years. This is the reason why he is regarded as one of the MVPs in the company. His professional experience gave him the opportunity to progress as a VP of Engineering for Bookmark. A job title that he holds so proudly. Shokarovski is a dynamic person he has a food blog, likes to spend some time in the wild, and enjoys biking.

If you enjoyed reading these employee success stories and want to learn more about Bookmark and its CEO – David Kosmayer, please visit this page.

These are unique experiences that turned into realities. It seems that Cosmic thrives on giving its employees chances, guiding them in their professional path, and nurturing their potential. I hope this article gave you a glimpse of a few individual success stories, yet we are proud of every single career path and milestone.

If you are eager to join us and grow with us, go ahead and check out our most recent job openings.

Our employees are our greatest asset!

The post Employee Success Stories at Cosmic Development appeared first on Cosmic Development.

At Cosmic Development, our employees are at the core of everything we do. We believe that the people-first approach is the foundation of a client-centric organization. We foster a culture of trust, confidence, and commitment and take the responsibility of creating the conditions that allow our employees to thrive.

Our “Employee Spotlight” series highlights our talented employees who bring ideas to light and make this company incredible. Next on our list is Bojan Angjelkovski. Bojan is a senior front-end developer and Angular specialist who adds to our fantastic team of developers, and we are very lucky to have him. Read on to discover more about Bojan and our software development team.

You are one of the newest additions to the Cosmic Development team. Could you tell us how your Cosmic journey began?

I embarked on my career journey with Cosmic Development about a year and a half. It all started on LinkedIn. The conversation there led to a video interview, and the whole process resulted in me getting hired as a senior software developer.

I like my Cosmic journey so far, and most of all, I enjoy the freedom and flexibility the company offers. I’ve got a lot of support from the team, and I can’t wait to meet everyone in person soon.

We would like to know why you opted for software development and why Angular exactly?

Software development is not always easy, but it is rewarding, fun, and engaging. Building software is more than writing code – it is providing solutions for users’ problems, and therefore it requires creativity, innovation, and problem-solving skills.

I like the feeling of achievement when I come up with solutions, and I am never bored when I work. Also, I love the potential of teamwork in software development. Being a part of a team and combining different points of view, experiences and skills lead to practical solutions to problems. We learn a lot from each other. I’ve learned a lot through indie development, where you go on your own, build something, and sell it to the world. So, I guess the vast potential for creative expression, sharing ideas, and collaboration with other developers, and above all, the passion I have for development, were essential to why I chose software development as a career.

And to answer the question about Angular. There are many reasons behind choosing Angular for web development. It offers a variety of features, programming styles, good documentation, google maintenance, package ecosystem, developer tooling, fast performance, stability and compatibility, and a learning curve.

What were the biggest challenges that you faced as a software developer?

We are working in a highly complex, vast, and dynamic industry, and software development is an essential part of that industry. Several factors are determining it, including growing complexities, market conditions, changing technology trends, and expanding software development challenges.

Of course, the challenges may vary. For example, most of the projects are now increasingly ruled by the “build once, deploy everywhere” paradigm, which means that a single application can run across multiple platforms. Integrating different programs and maintaining support complicates this issue even further.

However, for me personally, being up to date and not becoming obsolete is the most important thing to do in order to rise up to the challenges the industry brings.

What are the crucial things a software developer shall do to stay ahead of their game?

One shall face all obstacles without giving up. Persistence, positive mental attitude, and passion distinguish good from great software developers. Having endurance keeps your discipline, optimism and helps you persevere through difficult situations and challenges. Also, you have to be naturally curious, love to learn new things, and work hard. I believe that self-learners make the best programmers. Other vital traits I would mention are attention to detail and accepting feedback. Positive criticism is essential for growing, learning, and improving.

While we are discussing staying ahead of your game, can you tell us what your favorite books or podcasts on software development are?

I will start with books, and my first choice would be Eloquent JavaScript by Marjin Haverbeke. Eloquent JavaScript is a book that really stands out in a market saturated with programming content for developers. Having said that, I wouldn’t recommend it to beginners. It has some specific parts that require a few years of coding background to understand.

Next, I would list JavaScript: The Good Parts by Douglas Crockford. This one helped me “think in JavaScript” and helped me understand how to use the best parts of JS and bypass the bad parts.

For podcasts, I will mention JavaScript Jabber – one of the best-established JavaScript podcasts. And one of the must-see episodes is the interview with Brendan Eich, the man behind the JavaScript programming language.

You recently represented Cosmic Development at the DIGIT event organized by the Faculty of Computer Science and Engineering in Skopje. Can you tell us a bit more about that experience?

Yes, I was part of this year’s DIGIT- Angular 2021. It was a fresh experience for me, and it is a great idea. However, I believe there is much room for improvement, and the best way to do so is through getting constructive feedback from all sides.

Generally, it is an excellent way for the students to gain a realistic idea of what it is like to work on real projects and share ideas and solutions to a given problem, of course, with our help, as mentors. There should be more such events.

The post Employee Spotlight: Open Talk with Bojan, Senior Front-End Developer appeared first on Cosmic Development.

What is Software Outsourcing?

Software outsourcing means hiring an outside organization to complete all of the activities of a software development project instead of undertaking them in-house. When a company needs to reach its objectives faster, stay within budget, and build a competitive advantage, it requires a talented IT team to achieve that. Experienced outsourcing providers have the resources, talent, and expertise to build high-quality software. That is why companies worldwide are using this business strategy to grow their business by reducing operating costs and increasing the quality of services.

Benefits of Outsourcing

By choosing the right outsourcing strategy, your business can become more flexible and agile and adapt to the changing market conditions and challenges. The result is cost reduction and quality service, as mentioned above. However, the advantages of outsourcing go far beyond and include:

• Access to skilled experts
• Faster delivery
• Focus on core tasks
• Increased efficiency and productivity
• Reduced risk
• Time-saving

The importance and the benefits that outsourcing offers have become even more evident in the context of the COVID-19. The pandemic has forced many companies to cut costs and prioritize their digital transformation to support their business. The result is an increasing demand for outsourcing. Even businesses who had never considered this kind of service before have turned to it in these difficult times. More and more companies are keen on finding ways to reduce costs and overheads wherever they can. No matter what industry you’re in, outsourcing services can help you find solutions that are right for your business and keep you afloat.

How to Prepare Your Company for Outsourcing

If you’ve already decided to outsource software development, you’re probably wondering how to prepare before launching your collaboration with the service provider. Outsourcing is a business investment, so it is essential to have a clear plan and implementation strategy. You must be well prepared and know what you need before taking the first steps. In this article, we will provide you with some practical steps that you should take to build a successful outsourcing strategy. The steps before starting the project would usually include:

Step 1: Define your goals

For a project to be successful, it is essential to clearly define the business goals you want to achieve through outsourcing. Your remote team needs to see the vision and the purpose of the project. Also, get them involved because there is a lot you can learn from their experience in these initial stages. This will help you determine how you structure and manage the project and ensure that the outsourcing team can meet your needs. Be as specific as possible and make a list of the items you want to outsource and how you want them to handle them.

Step 2: Plan the budget

A carefully planned budget will determine how quickly you can complete the project, the level of skill you’ll hire, and the types of technologies and equipment you can use. The more advanced the technology, the higher the development cost will be. The purpose of planning a development budget is to make sure that you’re prepared for all possible situations. If you don’t know exactly how much of your money is disposable income, it is very easy to let your spending out of control. Also, make sure you have money set aside for hidden costs that are very likely to come across.
An intelligent and structured budget planning will make all the difference to the growth of your business. It will also allow you to have the most productivity and efficiency while keeping overhead costs in check. In that way, your business remains profitable and successful.

Step 3: Document the requirements

Inadequate specification of requirements can lead to failure of the software development. That how important it is. The requirements specification document serves as a map of the product you’ll build and the features you want to include. That document will be used as a reference during software development and set clear targets for the teams. Without it is very unlikely that you will build the right product.

Step 4: Choose the right outsourcing partner

As outsourcing is growing in popularity, especially in the last years, there are many software outsourcing companies on the market. Carefully select and create a list of providers who know your industry and have worked in it before. As a part of the outsourcing strategy, you will need to prepare questions to ask each provider. Thoroughly research the potential candidate’s portfolios, past projects, customer reviews, and referrals. Ensure they have the right technical expertise and IT infrastructure that includes the latest hardware and software components. You should also review their hiring process; discuss the criteria they use to select a team specific to your business objectives and if they facilitate their training.

A trustworthy outsourcing partner with an IT background that meets your organization’s unique technical needs will help you minimize the risks and establish solid ground for the project’s overall success. The right outsourcing partner should be dedicated to helping your company
succeed and grow, so consider all the influence factors before making your final decision.

Step 5: Choose the suitable outsourcing model

The outsourcing model that meets your project’s requirements will depend on its complexity, budget, deadline, and level of involvement. There are three types you can choose from:

• The project-based model. – With this model, you fully delegate software development to an outsourcing company, from planning to release. After clarifying your complete project requirements, the project managers and business analysts from the outsourced team take full responsibility for forming the development team and the quality and performance of the project.
• The dedicated team model. – This model provides you with a remote software development team entirely dedicated to your product and business goals. The team will be chosen according to your demands. You can decide if they will report directly to you or assign the service provider’s project manager to coordinate the communication process. With this model, you share the risks and responsibility for the quality of the product.
• Staff augmentation model. – Staff augmentation or team extension model allows you to hire software development experts at any point of your project’s cycle to fill talent gaps or speed up the delivery. They work remotely as part of your in-house tech team. This outsourcing strategy can be on a short, medium, or long-term basis and gives you more control over your project.

If you need help deciding which outsourcing model covers all your needs, you can always contact Cosmic Development experts and discuss your requirements.

Step 6: Assign roles and responsibilities

Assign management roles and responsibilities early on will ensure that the work will run smoothly. In that way, your in-house and outsourced software developers will know whom they should report to and who needs to be updated about the progress of the projects. That, in turn, will eliminate confusion, create a more transparent workplace, and increases productivity.

Step 7: Establish channels for communication

Uninterrupted communication is vital for the success of a project, and it also requires a plan. Effective communication channels are crucial, especially when you and the outsourcing team don’t share the same physical space, and should be discussed and agreed upon from the start.

Invest in proper communication tools and establish a standard format of communication that will allow you to keep all of the information organized. Use project management tools like Jira and Asana, collaboration tools like Slack and Teams, and messaging platforms like Skype. Email, chat, phone calls are all options. We live in a digital age, and there are countless excellent tools and software available. You have to find out what’s best for your project. Whatever communication channel you choose, make sure it fits your project and helps you successfully operate with a fully remote team.

Step 8: Be flexible

Keep in mind that a talented development team is an expert in their field. Be flexible enough to hear their ideas a creative solution they may offer.

In Summary

We hope we’ve shed some light on the steps you should take to prepare yourself for a successful outsourcing process. By implementing these eight steps, you’ll systematically achieve your goals, you will save time and money, and mitigate risks and improve your project’s delivery.

Thinking of Outsourcing Your Software Development Project?

Suppose you lack the time, resources, and knowledge to build a software development team from the ground up. In that case, you should consider outsourcing software development by teaming up with an experienced software development company.
Cosmic Development is a full-service IT development company with over ten years of experience building digital products and dedicated teams for international companies. We can find the right people to create and implement the digital transformation strategy and turn your business into a digital leader.
We deliver high-quality software at top speed and efficiency. Our solutions and services will enable you to move faster, work better, and stand out in a shifting market. 
Talk to our experts now.

The post How to Prepare Your Company for Outsourcing: 8 Steps to Creating a Successful Outsourcing Strategy appeared first on Cosmic Development.

For ten years, we’ve worked hard, formed a winning team, and established ourselves as a professional company driven by knowledge and expertise. Our anniversary is a testament to good management and good service. It is also a valuable time to reflect on the past and focus on the future.

Who is Cosmic Development

Cosmic Development is a Canadian outsourcing company that provides dedicated talent solutions in various IT services like consulting, software development, mobile and web applications, digital marketing and sales, administration, and virtual assistance. It was founded by two young businessmen, Chris Pavlovski and Ryan Milnes, back in 2011. During the first decade in business, Cosmic quickly grew its team, reputation, and client base. Today we have offices located in Skopje, Bitola, Barrie, and Belgrade. Our team counts over 200 dedicated professionals, and we are actively looking for more. We have a portfolio of over 300 completed projects with over 90 happy clients from the USA, Canada, Europe, and Australia, including AFV, Rumble, Bookmark, Some Spider, and Nas Daily.

Our Mission and Vision through the Years

Cosmic Development’s mission and vision remained unchanged through the years. Our ultimate goal is to be a global leader and provider of high-quality tech talent services and solutions that stem from meeting every client’s unique needs in the best possible way. 

Unleashing our exceptional employees’ full potential and providing world-class outsourcing services to our clients is the essence of our existence. 

We continuously strive for success and empower our employees with advanced knowledge and skills so that they will be able to serve our clients better. Our mission is to provide our clients with a dedicated development team that takes on work, earns their trust, and empowers their businesses with robust and cost-efficient IT services.

Our people are our biggest asset

Without our diligent employees, we would not be the company that we are today. They are more than just people who come to work– they are the driving force of Cosmic Development. Their commitment to our vision and our client’s success has allowed us to create an innovative culture and excellent teams dedicated to transforming ideas into reality.

Since its formation, Cosmic Development has been investing in developing an extraordinary working atmosphere. Our company’s culture fosters talent, mutual trust, and lifelong learning. We support our people on their career journeys and motivate them to realize their most significant potential. And we can proudly say success is our companion, as the company continues to attract more and more talent every day.

If you want to be a part of our team, find out more about our current vacancies by clicking here.

Here is what our people have to say about their Cosmic experience:

Vladimir Novacki

Vladimir is our Chief Technology Officer, and his carer path in Cosmic Development is more than inspiring. He has over twelve years of background in the industry and he is directly involved in the implementation of solutions for huge companies, ranked in the top 5 in their field, such as Rumble and AFV, among others.

Vladimir, could you please tell us how it all started?

Like many great things in life, this one started by chance. One of Cosmic Development’s founders gave a speech at the university, and I remember being so inspired by what he had to say about the IT industry. I instantly recognized Cosmic as the right place for me and decided to apply for their very first internship program. It turned out there were more than 50 undergraduates who applied for that program as well, but I was fortunate enough to be one of the four chosen interns. We were given the opportunity to work on real applications used by lots of people. The whole experience was truly priceless.   

After finishing the internship program, there was mutual interest between the company and myself to continue working there as a full-time employee and to keep working on those projects. Over the years of continuous learning and improvement of my skill set, I was empowered to nurture and grow my career in the company and consequently became the CTO. I guess I was lucky enough to find the perfect fit company right from the start.

Emilija Nikoloska

Emilija is a Senior Business Consultant with ten years of experience. She is with the company from the very beginning and has a lot to say when it comes to growing within Cosmic Development.

Emilija, can you tell us how and when did your journey with Cosmic Development start?

My Cosmic journey started back in 2011. I was one of the first six people that Cosmic hired at the time. I still remember my first day at the office, like it was yesterday. We were all new employees, and it felt pretty much like the first day at school, but this time for grown-ups . We were all very excited about the new job positions and the new office environment at the beginning. Yet, we felt nervous and uneasy as we all took part in a new venture that was still to be proven. From this point of view, I can only say that all of those “worries” were unnecessary as everything turned out just fine. Looking back, I can say I joined Cosmic when it was still a concept, an idea, and now I’m glad that I’ve been doing my part to make that idea a reality.  

Zharko Mirchevski

Zarko has been one of Cosmic Developments MVPs for almost eight years. He has a lot of experience as a software engineer and senior PHP developer, and his contribution to projects like MD.com, Bookmark.com, Rumble.com, SomeSpider.com is highly appreciated.

Zarko, what was the biggest challenge when you started working in Cosmic Development?

Remembering the names of all new colleagues, but I guess that’s probably the initial challenge everyone gets faced with when starting a new position in an unfamiliar working environment. On a more serious note, I’d say that the biggest challenge was adopting the company culture and procedures. The social aspect is as important as the technical part of a new job.

What Do Our Clients Say About Us?

Our client-centric approach gave us a competitive advantage and has been a catalyst for our growth. Cosmic Development has established itself as a reliable and trusted business process transformation partner throughout the years. We’ve built a solid and professional relationship with our clients and respond effectively to their specific needs. They’ve been critical to Cosmic’s growth and success, and we look forward to working with them in the coming years.

Here’s what they’re saying about us.

What are the benefits for your business that came out as a result of our work together? If you have an opportunity to recommend us to others, what would you tell them?

(Joshua Mendelssohn, Factinate)

It’s tough to outline the “benefits” of working with Cosmic Development because they are integral to our operation. In a certain sense, the benefit is that they allow our business to operate. To get into specifics, one of the major benefits is cost savings. Having our entire content team based in Canada would have been prohibitively expensive. Another significant benefit is that they make our content better. The Cosmic employees working on Factinate are fantastic, highly educated people who are very dedicated to the work they do, and this shows in the results.

I would undoubtedly recommend Cosmic Development (and we have too many now-clients of Cosmic)! To folks in our industry (online publishing) or looking to get into the industry, Cosmic has unique expertise: they can build and manage the website you need. Additionally, Cosmic’s business process employees and content creators could help so many businesses in various industries. The economics just make sense, and the people are top-notch.

Please tell us more about your collaboration with Cosmic Development?

(David Kosmayer, Bookmark)

I started with Cosmic Development in 2015 with a team of only four talented individuals. We built the foundation of Bookmark together, and they were along for the ride for a long time, with two of them still on the team today, six years later. Now that we’ve grown and have investors and partnerships, we can continue to add engineers with Cosmic, and that takes a huge and meaningful piece. Of the company off my hands, allowing me to focus my efforts on other brand facets.

What are the benefits for your business that came out as a result of our work together? If you have an opportunity to recommend us to others, what would you tell them?

(Chris Pavlovski, Rumble)

All-in-all, Cosmic Development is a competitive advantage for us. 

With the recent market turmoil caused by the Coronavirus, working with Cosmic amplifies the necessity and importance of our partnership. As a proactive company, we decided to avoid having to raise capital to fund daily operations years ago. Instead, choosing to work with Cosmic helped design our cost structure differently from competing companies, making it easier to weather storms like the one we are facing this year.

With their competitive pricing, quality of the teams, level of service, and recruitment process, this was a no-brainer. In addition, all their staff is dedicated and exclusive to a single client at a time. This is unique because they really bring the Rumble brand loyalty inside their Cosmic offices. If you wonder what I mean by this, just look at the team’s picture below.

Future Plans

There is no doubt that a tenth anniversary is extremely significant for us, and we are happy to celebrate our success story with our employees and clients.

Cosmic Development has grown into a renowned international IT outsourcing company in the past decade and became a global provider of skills, knowledge, and expertise.

Ten years after our start, we are proud to offer a wide range of digital outsourcing solutions ideally suited to each client’s business requirements. We are outsourcing dedicated teams that understand clients’ needs and can easily translate them into useful applications. We are optimistic that the future will be bright, and our next decade will be filled with growth, improvements, and even more great people.

Final Thoughts

Outsourcing is a strategic tool for achieving desired business goals and lasting results. If you want to partner with the right service provider to help you implement your business strategy, make sure you pick the best one. Having that said, we believe the information above provides you with enough insight into what we do as an IT support services company.

What we can do is develop a solution from scratch, providing all stages of development. Cosmic Development offers cost efficiency and a team of professional developers to help you outperform your competition and acquire sustainable growth. Let’s get in touch and schedule a free consultation today! We’ll help you figure out the best-dedicated talent solution for your business!

The post Celebration of Success – Ten Years of Outsourcing Tech Talent appeared first on Cosmic Development.

As we are walking in the last quarter of the notorious 2020, we can state one thing for sure: Remote work and distributed teams are here to stay. However, companies can be skeptical about moving their agile processes online when it comes to working remotely. At first glance, why wouldn’t they be? Especially having in mind that Agile was initially intended for teams that are physically located together in the same workspace. Even according to the 12 Principles of the Agile Manifesto: “The most efficient and effective method of conveying information to and within a development team is face-to-face conversation“––the first agile teams were intended to work together physically.

Some challenges arise for distributed software teams:

• Synchronizing teams in different time zones
• Building rapport without face-to-face contact
• Collaboration between different cultures
• Coordinating stand-ups and meetings considering that team members are online at the same time for a limited amount of time

These are genuine problems, but they are far from unsolvable. With almost ten years of experience in staff augmentation and software development services, we can share some insights and strategies to help you narrow the gap between working on-premises and remotely.

Structure Your Teams

Think of your team from a software engineer’s point of view: quality software architecture needs modular design, so design your software accordingly. The same goes for building teams. Every team should be able to develop a single fraction of the project, and by that, successfully reduce the dependence between your teams in different time zones or locations. You will actually make teams autonomous parts of your project or company. When a project requires team members to take part from different locations, they can focus solely on their integration points and APIs.

Code reviews are considered as an important part of the development process for remote teams. Since your people are working at different times, sharing knowledge of the code between teams makes maintenance easier.

Building and Maintaining Rapport

Agile teams need to build solid rapport between team members. This brings trust, reduces misunderstanding, makes self-organization easier, and builds morale and motivation. Take time, as much as possible, to get to know everyone within your distributed teams. A personal touch is a must. Creating strong rapport will lead to smoother communication between teams, which in turn leads to better workflows.

After all, who said that face-to-face meetings have to be offline? Especially these days, when Zoom and Google Hangouts have become our new-normal offices, we encourage using them in order to minimize the gap between distributed agile teams. At Cosmic Development, we are avoiding strictly scheduled Hangouts meetings for intra-team communication. Instead, we strive to create a culture of using video chats even for spontaneous informal conversations and ad-hoc meetings. Needless to say, instant-messaging tools like Slack or Microsoft Teams are very helpful in solving small issues or in simply keeping in touch. 

To help address some remote communication challenges within the team, you need to stimulate team members to have one-on-one video sessions whenever possible. These should not be formal, but they still need to be focused on work and oriented around knowledge sharing in a casual way.

Structuring a United Development Culture

Here are the four simple rules our teams follow in order to make remote work easier:

1. Overcommunicate decisions and procedures
2. Minimize the onboarding friction
3. Clearly define terminology
4. Create reporting guidelines 

Now, let us discuss each of them more thoroughly:

1. Overcommunicate Decisions and Procedures

When members of a distributed agile team make decisions, they need to communicate those decisions thoroughly. That sounds a bit obvious, but it is very easy to forget. Important decisions are often made in informal conversations; they are brainstormed between individuals or discussed spontaneously on calls between individuals. In contrast to this, small decisions are often dismissed as unimportant, especially if we focus on another part of the conversation. 

When working in a remote culture, everything, even the minute details, need to be communicated until the whole team starts moving in the same flow.

It is easy to lose meaning or essential information if you announce important decisions via email. Everyone in your dispersed teams needs to understand the decisions, the reasons behind each decision, and how they will be implemented. Team members that are working on outdated information can lead to major setbacks, hitting a blockade, and then re-communicating the whole process costs the team more time than accuracy sharing information in the first place.

2. Minimize the Onboarding Friction

You can tame the “first-day-friction” by utilizing a good onboarding procedure. Remote team members should feel at home right off the bat, which helps build cohesion between team members of different cultures. 

3. Clearly Define Terminology

While working with remote teams, clear standards around simple terminology like “complete” and “done” help manage expectations and ease communication. A clear definition of task completion eliminates ambivalence in work. For example, when sending a release that involves work from multiple teams, make sure to make it clear what “complete” means in this particular context: (a) the code needs to be written, (b) pull request created, (c) code needs to be reviewed and tested, (d) and finally integrated into the main codebase.

4. Create Guidelines for Reporting

Distributing the development process means that not everyone is online and ready for work when problems come up. We recommend setting systems and guidelines for troubleshooting, but reports and issue tracking. You will not believe how much easier such systems and guidelines make it for anyone on the team to track down and resolve issues. Code reviews and automated tests should be part of this process as it enables the remote team to make changes and validate them so they will not have any unexpected side effects.

Maximize the Mutual Online Time

The golden hours for remote agile teams are when most of the team members are online at the same time. This is the perfect time for stand-ups, coordination meetings, or one-on-one calls.

For teams that work in different time zones, a stand-up meeting is an excellent opportunity to share their issues, obstacles, or decisions. Having the stand-ups via video calls makes it easy to coordinate and catch-up with the flow, so everyone is up and running as soon as the meeting is done.

Instruct the project manager to closely monitor the entire team’s engagement during the stand-up. If there is an undue tension, or communication is becoming unfocused and counter-productive, your team members will quickly disengage.

Stand-ups do not have to be strictly daily meetings. You can have them a few times per week and use the other days for informal communication. Thus, a stand-up does not have to be just a morning routine, but you can organize it at the most convenient time for everyone that forms part of your remote agile teams. 

We all need to adapt and learn how to work within remote teams, communicate efficiently, and grow a cohesive culture. Many large companies have successfully implemented distributed agile workflows long before the COVID-19 pandemic, allowing them to cut costs and work more efficiently. On the other hand, remote work is very easy to implement for small teams that have previously worked together in a common office. Such teams can significantly benefit from the advantages of working remotely.

Stay tuned for Part Two, where we will talk to Bookmark‘s Project Manager about her hands-on experience with managing a remote team.

Sources:

• agilemanifesto.org/
• agilealliance.org/resources/experience-reports/remotely-agile/
• blog.stormid.com/distributed-agile-working/

The post Remote Work and Agile Teams are Here to Stay appeared first on Cosmic Development.