Hiring a dedicated software development team in 2022
The tech talent shortage has become a more and more serious problem for businesses all over the world. Technologies are сhanging with the speed that no educational system can keep up.
Today a dedicated software development team can be a real answer to this problem. But what do you need to know before hiring an outside team? How does the process work? What are dedicated project team advantages and disadvantages?
Read tips for 2022 and beyond.
Let’s take a look at the current state of the changing market and its potential you can use for your business benefit.
The digital job market in the nearest future
According to Coursera, digital jobs are expected to grow up to 190M by 2025.
98M of all these new jobs will be for software development specialists, 23M for cloud and data roles, and 20M for data analysis, machine learning, and AI professionals.
Even more, the World Economic Forum survey highlighted that AI and ML specialists are among the most desired professions in the market along with software and application developers.
But what on the other side of the growing demand for tech experts?
According to the Skills Gap report, it is most difficult to find talents in such countries as the US, Sweden, Hungary, Poland, and Slovenia. Only 18% of respondents are not reporting talent shortages inside their countries.
A survey by CodinGame says that it will be even more difficult to hire DevOps in the coming years, according to 43% of respondents. Also, back-end and full-stack developers are on top-3 of the list of professions with a lack of experts.
As a result, finding experienced tech talents will take even more time and resources in years to come. How can a dedicated team approach be useful in this case?
How dedicated teams work?
A dedicated team model of cooperation between businesses and tech vendors is pretty simple. For their software development needs, any company can hire a full development team or straighten their tech department with several experts. The hired team is completely dedicated to the specific project and can be managed from the business or vendor’s side.
Outsourcing vendors provide services from HR and administrative support to development team infrastructure. Dedicated teams can use various workflow methodologies, such as Agile or its scaled technique Scrum.
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When to hire dedicated developers?
Of course, there will always be different business needs and ways to cover them. But there are several common signs that a dedicated team is a right choice for your company.
You should hire dedicated developers, when:
1. It’s a long-term project. Dedicated teams work better for complex projects with specific requirements and continuous delivery, unique products where you need access to a vast pool of professionals.
2. You are planning an expansion of business or entering a new market. As long as most of the team management questions can be solved on the vendor’s side, the team has enough time to analyze all the aspects and features of the development process, and it helps to enter the market faster with a quality product.
3. The business feels a lack of certain tech skills. Hiring offshore tech experts gives you access to a wider talent pool. It makes it easier to fill the gap in your team and get the right professionals with expertise in your field.
4. Urgent development needs a quick response. Dedicated developers can save time on hiring, onboarding, and management processes. A professional tech vendor will suggest a team for your software needs in the short term.
5. You have a software idea but don’t have enough technical knowledge to bring it to life. The professional dedicated software development team will start from the discovery and design stage of the project to analyze its potential. That you will receive a detailed report with the plan of project realization. Rely on professionals to not play blind.
Dedicated team structure
The dedicated team structure depends on the business needs, the specifics of the project, its scope, and the available resources. Still, there are several most common positions for the team:
From the tech vendor’s side:
- Project manager / Technical team lead;
- Business analyst;
- Solution architect;
- UI/UX designer;
- Developers / Engineers;
- Quality assurance specialist.
From the business side:
- Product owner;
- Technical team lead / CTO.
Dedicated project team’s advantages and disadvantages
The main advantages of a dedicated team model
As a conclusion of the previous paragraph, let’s point out the main advantages of dedicated software development teams:
- Time-saving on the hiring process and, as a result, quicker covered of the software development needs;
- Access to a wide talent pool with various expertise to feel talents gap;
- Reduced operational costs on management and hiring processes. You don’t need to provide a dedicated team with an office;
- Focused approach. The team of developers dedicates their full time to your project;
- Flexibility which is granted by modern dedicated team management methodologies;
- Direct control over all the stages of the process.
Possible disadvantages
Despite all the benefits of the dedicated team model, some risks also can have a place.
1. It’s not suitable for short-term and small projects. There is no need to hire a dedicated team for small projects with clear and settled requirements. In this case, it is best to hire a few freelancers or individual programmers. Still, it is safer to work with professional outsourcing vendors than with freelance platforms.
2. Changes in budgets. It’s important to understand that your business needs may change in long-term projects. With time, you may require additional specialists for the team, and as a result, additional spendings. The problem can easily be solved by reliable planning from your tech vendor.
3. Time-consuming onboarding. Basically, with a dedicated software development team, you are adding a full new department to your company. It would be the right decision to spend time explaining the company’s culture and goals. Go deeper into project ideas to avoid future misunderstandings.
How to manage dedicated developers
There are different approaches for dedicated team management and Agile is the most used among them. But is it the only existing methodology? In fact, the Waterfall concept existed a long time before Agile launched in 2001.
Invented in 1970, the Waterfall methodology made software engineering much more structured. The essence of the approach is step-by-step development where each phase – discovery, design, development, testing, etc. – is fully completed before the next step begins. The methodology required a lot of documentation such as user stories, all functional variations and outcomes, time estimates, and more. Giving more predictable results, the Waterfall approach is still less flexible and difficult in changing project courses when needed.
At some time, a group of experienced software developers gathered and realized that they were working out of the boundaries of the classic Waterfall methodology. The group included Kent Beck, Martin Fowler, Ron Jeffries, Ken Schwaber, and Jeff Sutherland, who developed the Agile Manifesto. The new system documented their common viewpoint on how the modern software development processes need to work.
What is Agile?
Agile is a project management approach where the general goal is divided into small steps. Thus, instead of one big launch, the Agile project contains smaller parts of tasks that can be performed in a short time. This makes it easier for teams to adapt to changing priorities, respond to emerging issues, and reduce costs, time, and inefficiencies.
To implement Agile principles in a project, dedicated teams use a framework or method. The most common one is Scrum. Others are Kanban, Crystal Method, Extreme Programming, and several of their hybrids.
Methods to implement Agile in a workflow:
1. Scrum
The framework is designed to develop products in a sustainable environment. In Scrum, delivery cycles are called “sprints” which usually last from one to four weeks.
The work is phased and based on the previous tasks. Scrum teams are small and can vary from three to nine people including a Scrum Master and Product Owner. Communication with team members and stakeholders is consistent, so feedback is regular and changes can be made as soon as possible.
Through its flexibility, scrum is a good fit for almost every project, especially for complex hardware and software products across diverse industries.
2. Kanban
Kanban teams work around a Kanban board, which is used to visualize and streamline the workflow. Boards are needed to standardize the process, to find and eliminate main progress blockers and dependencies. It doesn’t matter in what form boards are represented – it can be physical or virtual.
On a standard Kanban board, the process has three steps: To Do, In Progress, and Done. However, the board can be customized according to the team’s process, depending on its size, structure, and goals.
The Kanban methodology is based on complete transparency and real-time discussion of performance. Thus, the Kanban board should be the only source of information about the team’s work.
Kanban is also applicable to almost every project size. Also, it’s perfect for the teams who need an easier approach, who work in an iterative environment, or for teams who have trouble in determining what amount of work has to be delivered.
Some teams combine Scrum and Kanban into Scrumban. It implements Scrum’s main roles and sprints of fixed duration, and the Kanban side focuses on time cycles and work-in-progress limits.
3. Crystal Method
Crystal method is an Agile framework which is considered as a methodology that focuses on individuals and their interactions. The method is used mainly for short-term projects by a team of developers working from a single workspace.
4. Extreme Programming (XP)
The main goal of this software development methodology is to allow small to mid-sized teams to produce high-quality software and adapt to changing requirements in a short time period.
The methodology is applicable in these situations:
- Dynamic changes in software requirements;
- Risks, caused by projects with fixed terms when using new technology;
- Small, co-located extended development team.
Focus on your business and let us handle the engineering part
Conclusions
In a rapidly changing market, it becomes harder to stay competitive without adopting the latest technologies and providing the best services in your industry. Thus, dedicated teams can be applicable in such cases.
Therefore, you should always weigh all the pros and cons and consult with a competent team to get the best from the collaboration.
CLUTCH