|
Tips
for Finding and Choosing the Right Freelancer or Service Provider for your
Services
1. Where
to find a Service Provider
You
can find service providers or freelancers through online outsourcing
marketplaces. All you need to do is submit your requirements. Service
providers whose skills match your criteria will submit bids/proposals.
Alternatively, you can search for providers through search engines and
directories – this step is more time consuming.
2.
Confidentiality Agreement
If
your requirements contain some confidential information, then do not give
all the requirements to the service providers. You can give them a short
description of your requirements and ask them to sign a Non-Disclosure
Agreement (NDA) before you provide them all the information.
3.
Provide clear Scope, Schedule, and Deliverables
Clearly
define the scope, schedule, and deliverables for your project. It is
recommended that you give service providers as much information as you can
in order to allow them to submit realistic proposals with reasonable rates.
4.
Evaluate Proposals
Evaluate
service providers’ proposals against your evaluation criteria. An
evaluation criterion is a measure that you will use to evaluate proposals,
e.g., experience in similar projects, approach and methodology, price, etc.
Always find the key differentiators between all competitive proposals. Feel
free to ask them any questions to learn more about them. One of the
important questions can be about what kind of support will be available
during and after the project is finished.
5.
Review Portfolios/Sample Work and Feedback from Previous Clients
Short-list
the service providers whose proposals satisfy your evaluation criteria
(cost, approach, etc). Check their references and get feedback from their
clients. View their samples and completed projects or portfolios to
understand their quality standards and work capability. Do not choose a
service provider based solely on price: you need to take overall quality
apart from price into consideration.
6.
Choose a Service Provider
Finally,
compare the competitive bids to make the right decision.
What
next after you have chosen a Service Provider
1.
Service-Level Agreement
It’s
good practice to get everything in writing from the service provider, who
will provide the agreement and project plan. The agreement must have the project
plan attached which outlines a project's scope, deliverables, timeline, and
payment terms. This will help in avoiding disputes during the project. You
should also ask the service provider to give you a list of
deliverables/milestones with tentative dates of completion. Ownership of
work must be stated and included in the agreement.
2.
Releasing Payment
Service
providers always demand advance payment. This should be 20–30 percent. The
rest of the payment should be dependent on agreed deliverables. Only
release payment when a deliverable/milestone is met.
Tips
on Managing your Project
1.When
a project starts, introduce yourself or your team members to the
development team. Specify meeting, reporting, and feedback timings.
2.Project
scope, deliverables, and price can change during the course of a project:
it is highly recommended that all these changes be agreed upon, documented,
and signed by both the service provider and you.
3.If
your service provider is located offshore, the greatest challenges of
successfully managing offshore projects are overcoming differences of
language, culture, and geography. All the processes must be well documented
to avoid any confusion. These processes may include: resolution of
problems, reports, feedback, discussion timings, etc.
4.Depending
on your flexibility, ask the service provider to submit daily or weekly
progress reports to see the actual performance in comparison to the plan
initially submitted.
5.Make
sure the service provider understands how you intend to use the
deliverables that they are agreeing to provide. It must be clear about who
owns the final work.
6.Save
all information from the chats, emails, messages and discussions between
you and your service provider. It may be helpful in resolving disputes.
Parveen
Panwar is founder of http://www.Go4outsourcing.com, an online freelance
outsourcing marketplace to find freelancers/outsourcing companies.
Freelance web developer, freelance software coders, freelance software
developers,freelance web designer register at Go4outsourcing.com to
showcase their services.
|