I was recently asked 3 questions about working with remote software development teams, the questions were specifically about quality issues

1) Why customers get poor-quality software while working with remote software development teams?

Being successful with remote teams requires a level of maturity that many organizations lack. Often there are no documented standards, no processes, no vision, and so on… This leads to delays, quality issues and general frustration with the remote team. Generally the problem is not the remote team, it’s the customer.

2) According to your experience, if you could distinguish three key reasons of poor software quality, what would they be?

• Product requirements that are unclear and/or poorly documented.
• A weak product owner or a product owner that will not work off hours to remain in contact with the remote team.
• Not taking into account cultural differences, both location and company cultures can have a big impact on team dynamics.

3) Could you give customers a practical piece of advice, what they should pay their attention to in order to avoid low software quality?

Always check for understanding when reviewing the product backlog. Since your product owner can’t be there with the team you have to fill the void with documentation, mockups, and conference calls. Spend the extra time to prepare these artifacts one sprint ahead of development and review them with the remote team leads. Get your stories clear ahead of the sprint and a lot of trouble goes away. Insist on frequent demonstrations and good software process. Be very sure the team is on the same page.