How to Successfully Collaborate in Multi-Company Projects

As a Quality assurance engineer, in this article I'll share insights from a recent project where we partnered with a company that had never worked with a QA team before. By defining responsibilities early on, we created a shared understanding that allowed seamless collaboration between both teams.

Keep reading to find out which strategies can help you navigate and optimize collaboration in multi-company projects.

The Challenge

The project I’ll refer to in this blog post is a data platform in the automotive industry developed for data scientists, governance teams, engineers, and many other roles. Now in its fourth year, this project serves as an excellent example of successful multi-company collaboration.

When the project first started, our team consisted of just 20 people. However, over the years, it has expanded to 60 members, encompassing a range of roles — from stakeholders and product owners to designers, developers, and QA engineers. All of us were spread across three companies located in three different countries. While this diversity brought valuable perspectives, it also came with challenges, like building mutual understanding and adapting to cultural differences. How did we deal with it? With communication. 

Let’s Talk About It

Effective communication is essential to the success of any project, especially when multiple companies are collaborating. Clear, consistent communication allows teams to collaborate smoothly, coordinate efforts, and achieve shared goals.

If you work in Scrum, as we do, make sure that all team members participate in Scrum ceremonies, like daily stand-ups, retrospectives, refinements, and planning sessions. Internal meetings within your company are just as important. They’re a chance to update management and your internal team on project progress. I encourage you to be active in those meetings, focusing on open, respectful communication to ensure every opinion is heard and valued.

To identify areas for personal growth and further strengthen your collaboration, you should give each other feedback from time to time. Try organizing regular retrospectives– both bi-weekly and annual – as they are great opportunities to discuss challenges and come up with solutions.

Establishing Workflows and Team Collaboration

Successful collaboration in multi-company projects starts with setting up clear workflows. A well-defined workflow ensures everyone knows their roles, responsibilities, and how they depend on each other. The goal is to have teams from different companies work together seamlessly, which boosts overall project efficiency. This clarity can help teams coordinate effectively, complete tasks on time, and meet deadlines, all of which are critical for the project’s success.

So, how do you establish a good workflow?

To tailor your team setup to the project’s scope and requirements, start by assessing its strengths, weaknesses, and specific needs — such as, for example, the ideal number of developers and QA engineers for each team. You might also consider including an agile coach to help identify process issues and develop solutions.

To put things into perspective — one of our four teams includes a product owner, a designer, a QA engineer, and six developers. This structure didn’t happen overnight; it evolved over the years as we refined our approach to meet project needs better. Try experimenting with different team combinations to find what works best for you.

Effective collaboration benefits both the team and the client. Diverse perspectives and creative problem-solving from each company boost innovation and lead to higher-quality results.

Effective Collaboration and Sharing Updates

To achieve effective collaboration on a multi-company project, it’s crucial to invest in transparent communication — not just within the project team, but also with stakeholders. How? You might ask.  

Keep everyone in the loop by sharing frequent updates on the project's progress, any potential challenges, and upcoming milestones. This will help teams coordinate better, address issues quickly, and, ultimately, deliver higher-quality results. Plus, transparency builds trust and confidence in the project with clients as well. Keeping them updated will also allow them to give timely feedback, helping the project stay aligned with their changing needs and expectations.

This proactive approach reduces disruptions and keeps the project running smoothly. It helps all teams see themselves as partners in the client’s success, focused on understanding their goals, learning about user needs, and discussing the results they’ve achieved together. For example, you can plan an all-hands meeting once in a while to gather everyone in one place, catch up on updates, share achievements, and look forward to the next steps. Moments like these can help build a strong sense of unity and enthusiasm across your entire team. 

Recognizing Achievements

Recognizing project achievements along the way is essential. Our international team comes together every year to celebrate what we've accomplished and look ahead to the year to come. You can share achievements and milestones through any communication channel you choose, like emails, meetings, and company newsletters — just make sure everyone from your team is being acknowledged.

The great thing is you can create traditions that work best for your team at any time. One of ours is a small ceremony at the end of each sprint, where we add a pebble to a vase where the stone represents a closed ticket, creating a visual reminder of our progress and how far we’ve come, sprint by sprint.

Feel free to use this idea if it works for you. 

Project Success

The main goal of any project is to complete it successfully and meet your client’s expectations. What’s great about multi-company projects is that they combine knowledge and expertise from different areas, which can greatly improve the quality of the final product. Different perspectives and specialized skills lead to higher standards of quality and more innovative approaches to problem-solving.

Team Work and Project Improvement

Teams from different companies can learn from one another and share best practices and innovative techniques, which leads to continuous improvement. This type of collaboration can help projects adapt to changes and align with the latest industry standards. For clients, this means receiving a final product that’s not only up-to-date but also refined through multiple experts.

To Sum Up

Working on large, long-term projects can be challenging, especially when multiple companies are involved. It requires strong organization, clear roles, and a shared commitment to the same goal. However, when done right, it can provide numerous growth opportunities, inspire innovation, and enable you to deliver real value to users.