1. Buying people when the gap is management The most common mistake by far. Adding specialists to a team with no spare management capacity adds a coordination problem to the delivery problem. A managed team, where the provider runs the day-to-day work, avoids it.
2. Treating the first month as fully productive Every new team needs a ramp-up. Plan for it openly and it stays a normal onboarding curve.
3. No agreed definition of done Write quality standards down before work starts, so everyone measures the work the same way from the first sprint.
4. Routing everything through one person When all communication runs through one person on your side, delivery pauses whenever they’re away. Spread the contact points and give the team a clear owner on the provider’s side.
5. Leaving status reporting to chance Build regular, structured reporting into the process: weekly scores, one-to-ones and a named person who flags risks early. Good news and bad news then travel at the same speed.
6. Choosing on the lowest rate The cheapest arrangement usually has the highest turnover, and re-onboarding costs more than the saving. Retention is the number to compare.
What these have in common
Every one of them is structural, which means each can be designed out from the start. Changing vendor without changing the structure usually produces the same result with different names.
The first mistake is really a choice of model, covered in full in staff augmentation vs managed services. How we set up a dedicated offshore team to avoid all six is explained in how it works.