The last four months at twobelowzero have been extremely busy with some great jobs, hence the gap in our blog posts, and with an expanding workload we've been faced with looking to outsource elements of projects and even complete projects.

Let me explain
Over the last two years we have migrated all our core web based projects to ExpressionEngine, which is a content management system framework that we build around. It offers flexibility and has so far out performed all the other systems we have used. So in theory this makes the outsourcing route easier for us to manage as we only really have the one core platform to work with.

Finding the right people
With our eyes on many #ExpressionEngine forums, developer networks and twitter we have found a lot of key players and companies from around the globe that offer contract work and development. So I here you ask, how do you go about checking them out. Here's a quick list of tips to follow when checking the names behind the code. Trust me this is well worth the effort, as we have learnt rather painfully about; hence me wanting to share this with you all.

Ask to see the code that sites behind the website and in the case of EE the structure
Check that the site does what they say it does (front end versus back end). Yes there are some that just sit looking pretty!
Ask to speak to clients and more than one; preferably ones you pick
Search Twitter and Facebook to see what others are saying about these people
Search trusted networking sites such as Linkedin and go and chat to the people at meet ups
Right, now you have found the prospective people, your happy and it's time to start the project(s).
Hold fire... Make sure you check these final points. Being stuck with a freelance developer or company halfway through a project that's not going to plan is no fun. Trust me we have been there.

Check the contract, especially about how you can exit if need be and at what cost to both parties
Ensure the payments are staged in your favour - some contractors will take the money and run!
Check the team members involved in the project - A good salesman will be totally useless when your knee deep in code and you find their coders are of a junior level
Make sure your contract has a clause about failing to meet deadlines - it could be your saviour if it all goes wrong
No we can't do that is 99% of the time an excuse to hide poor knowledge. Don't take their word for it. Check with others.

Good luck
So for twobelowzero the last four months of projects have delivered some real highs (we've done some fab looking and functioning sites) to real lows (being faced with people that are rubbish and can't deliver what they promise), but most importantly as a company we have managed to get back on track and keep our clients happy; and in turn this has led us into meeting some great people who helped us out of the mess.

Thanks to you all - you know who you are.
We will continue develop great relationships with these freelancers and companies as more great projects are won by us.