Do you really know what coke does to you?

For those of you who may be getting reminiscent about your party days, or just remembering last night ;), that’s not what I’m talking about.

I’m talking about Coca Cola.

Every few years, a new story comes out about the damage it can do to you.

Most recently, one came out today about how it reacts with a substance in your stomach to create an almost tar like material.

It’s pretty rank.

But that’s not going to stop anybody drinking it. Not seriously.

Why? Because it’s easy to watch a video and distance yourself from it, assume it’s not happening to you because you can’t see it in yourself.

And… coke is pretty damn delicious!

However, it will make a few people feel sick, and it’s that kind of sick feeling that you get right down in the pit of your stomach.

It’s the kinda feeling you get when you’ve been working with an outsourcer who you feel isn’t doing what you want them to do.

Yesterday, I was on a call discussing a project, where exactly this has happened.

And it got me thinking, outsourcing is awesome, particularly if you want to develop web applications or software.

But I’ve never shared with you how you should be managing your outsourced development team.

Very quickly you can find it difficult to know what’s been done and what hasn’t been done, what bugs have been fixed and what bugs haven’t.

Those chat boxes on Freelancer and Upwork are, to be frank, absolute shite.

Forget using them as a primary means of staying on track, this is how you do it…

Create yourself a master document or spreadsheet, and write down bullet points of every single thing that you expect to be done in the project.

Give this to your developer with your brief, and tell them that you’ll be testing the features in this order.

When your developer comes back to you and says the first feature is ready for testing, make a new document or spreadsheet, and write down every bug you find in it. One per row.

Send this document back to the developer, and ask them to fix them all before moving on.

As they come back with fixes, highlight the ones working in green on your bug test sheet. This allows you to see at a glance which are outstanding.

When all the bugs have been fixed to your satisfaction, go back to your master document and highlight the first feature in green, then move on to the second feature with it’s own bug testing sheet.

This will keep you moving forwards with your project, it will make sure you know exactly what’s been done and what needs to be done.

And… it will prevent you getting lost inside your own project.

Michael