There may come an instance where a company has to take over and complete a project that was being developed by a different company. As a matter of fact, many companies offering software development in Dubai are approached for taking over a half-baked project and finishing it. Some companies see this as a great opportunity to begin a prospective relationship with a new client. But on the other hand, these kind of requests can also be quicksand. 

The scenario is more common than we presume it to be. Almost every leading ASP.NET MVC development company in the Middle East has taken over ASP.NET web development projects that had been handled by a different company at some point. 

We collected a few tips from such companies to help growing ones safely take over third-party projects and successfully complete them. 

• Research before committing - Not just casual research but an extensive one is required before committing to finish a third-party project no matter how big the pay cheque is. It is important to identify any and all risks associated with the project, assess the significance of those risks, and devise risk mitigation strategies before committing.
• Ask for any available documentation to probe further - The investigation phase primarily deals with source code reviews. But it’s still a wise approach to go through every documentation available. 
• Understand what went wrong and where - Ask the client about the project’s origins, technical hiccups, the communication with the former development team etc. All of these can help one understand where things went wrong enough to demand a team change.
• Contact the previous team if possible - It makes sense to hear what the previous team has to say about the project like why they implemented certain features and what they hoped to achieve with a particular UI element etc. 
• Understand functional and non-functional requirements - Understanding functional and non-functional requirements would make it easier for one to outline them in the contract unambiguously i.e. it would be clear what has been implemented and what all are required to be fixed or finished. 
• Document everything about the current state of the system - It’s important to take a snapshot of the state of the product before starting the project; especially if the company went for a fixed cost model. This way, if the client finds new bugs in the system, one can prove that this isn’t because of the new changes in the code.

Conclusion

Despite the risks involved, many companies are willing to take up the challenge of completing a third-party project after thorough research. The basic principle is quite similar to that of how an Application Management Services Company offers to manage applications developed and owned by different parties. However, developing a half-baked third-party project is even more challenging. The success rate of such a project lies on the research conducted by the new team.