All about a dedicated development team. What should be the dedicated team model in 2022? How to choose the right developers?
Ten years ago, when creating digital products, developing IT solutions, and designing software, the main alternative to hiring in-house developers was to outsource the entire project to an external contractor. In the modern world, everything is changing rapidly, the development market is constantly evolving, and mixed approaches such as outstaffing of employees and staff expansion are becoming more and more popular.
And one of such solutions is hiring a dedicated development team that is an example of a hybrid collaboration format at the intersection of insourcing and outsourcing.
And it is this approach that we are going to talk about today. What is this model? What is its structure? How does it work? What are the main pros and cons of hiring such a team? And most importantly — how to choose the right and reliable developers for your project?
Keep reading to find out everything you need to know about the dedicated development team.
What is a Dedicated Team Model?
So, this is a model of cooperation with a digital service provider, in which the client is provided with software development specialists on a long-term basis. A team of specialists is selected in accordance with the set requirements, tasks, and goals, the overall vision of the project, and also taking into account the experience, competencies, and skills of specialists.
In fact, this collaboration model is one of the best and most efficient, allowing you to hire a team of experienced and first-class programmers who will be fully immersed in working on your project and fully meet its requirements. Without being distracted by other tasks and taking into account all the needs of your business.
A dedicated outsourcing crew in a collaborative way is similar to an in-house team of full-time employees who work in a separate office. Development management and coordination of the communication process may remain the responsibility of the implementer. The team usually works from the service provider’s office in this case.
So, in general, you hire specialists to carry out your project or develop your digital product. And it is important to understand that this type of cooperation is fundamentally different from another alternative approach — an extended team. If the first one is a separate and full-fledged structure that works for your business, then the extended team model is the addition and enlargement of existing staff.
As for the dedicated team, the key features of this approach are the ability to delegate tasks and focus on critically important matters, the possibility of close interaction between the client and the hired specialists, and constant monitoring of the project progress and workflows to achieve the set goals and desired results. And it is in the concentration and dedication that the main value of this model of cooperation lies.
With this approach, you get expert professionals who are focused on meeting all your business needs within a project.
Structure of a Software Development Team
The members of the development team are determined by the tasks, needs, and goals of each specific project. However, the common option of the dedicated team structure includes several roles whose duties cover different areas of responsibility.
Product Manager. They are responsible for identifying customer requests and setting goals to be achieved within the project. Product managers work at the intersection of business, marketing, and development. These specialists control the work on a new product at all stages and work to make the product successful.
Project Manager. The purpose of their activities is full direct project management: design, prioritization, planning, control, communication, and problem-solving. In general, the project manager synchronizes the work of the team, forms a workflow plan, sets deadlines, determines the necessary resources, and is responsible for the budget.
Business Analyst. These specialists act as a link between the business and the development crew. In fact, they are responsible for creating the requirements for implementation. Business analysts identify client goals, come up with concepts, and generate requirements. They not only collect and define the requirements for the project being implemented but also make them understandable and accessible to programmers.
UX/UI Designer. These specialists are engaged in the design and creation of user interfaces. That is, they are responsible for how the user will interact with the interface and what steps need to be taken to do something (UX), as well as how each of these steps will look like (UI).
Tech Lead. This is one of the most experienced members of the team, who leads the technical vision and implementation of the project. These professionals lead development teams, dive deep into technical issues, delve into the workflow, and have full control over the development process.
Backend, Frontend, and Mobile Developers. Engineers are the basis of the team. They are directly involved in product development and each of them has his own area of responsibility. Backend programmers are engaged in the development and support of the server part of digital products, and frontend developers are engaged in the part visible to the user — they implement UX/UI design, set up the correct operation of the interface, and determine how interaction with the product will be carried out. Mobile developers do the same things that frontend ones do, but for mobile applications.
QA Tester. These specialists ensure the proper quality of the end product, improve the development process, monitor performance, and prevent failures and errors in the product. They control compliance with standards during development and meeting the requirements for the implemented product.
DevOps Engineer. These specialists work at the intersection of development and operations. These engineers are responsible for automating the product life cycle and managing the development and administration departments. They provide interaction between developers, testers, managers, and other team members, and also work to maximize the efficiency and safety of project development.
Benefits of a Dedicated Team Approach
As we have already mentioned, this collaboration model for a development project is often the most optimal, reliable, and prospective solution in terms of various business goals and objectives. This is the best option for a long-term partnership when the project is flexible, the scope of work is variable, and the client wants to totally control the workflow and manage employees like full-time ones.
So, why should you hire such a team for your small startup or large enterprise?
Access to the best specialists
If you are not limited to your region when hiring specialists, you can find the best talents from other countries. Also, keep in mind that you can pick up equally experienced and skilled developers from another region that has lower rates for similar services. In fact, such unlimited possibilities allow you to create truly the best crew.
Saving money and time
It is much cheaper to assemble a dedicated crew than to form an in-house staff. This is true both in terms of the costs for the recruiting process and the resources to organize the work. In addition, the choice in favor of this type of cooperation also benefits from the point of view of convenience and speed.
Immersion and dedication
This option of partnership with outsourcing companies necessarily implies an individual and targeted approach. The specialists are completely immersed in the client’s business and are focused on one project, which means they work as efficiently as possible and achieve all the goals set.
Adaptability and integration
This model involves the transformation of the team at different stages of project implementation, which may be caused by changing requirements in the course. This scalability allows you to remain flexible to fully meet the variable needs of the business, market, and industry.
Extended possibilities of control
The client gets the opportunity to partially or completely control the project based on the dedicated model. This is the best solution for those heads who seek to independently manage all development processes. Such a partnership offers more possibilities of control than other alternative outsourcing models.
Limitations of a Dedicated Team Approach
While collaboration on this basis is convenient, beneficial, and efficient, it is not without some drawbacks that can make your partnership a bit tricky.
What should you consider and be prepared for if you decide to hire such a team for your project?
Difficulty of choice
When you are not limited by geographical barriers, companies and specialists from all over the world become available to you. And such a huge number of talents obviously complicates the picking and hiring. Furthermore, it is very difficult to really evaluate the developers, their experience, and skills, and hence the effectiveness of potential collaboration for your project. This is not only a very complicated process but also a very long one.
Inefficiency for short-dated cooperation
Despite the huge number of really important strengths, this type of partnership will not show the expected results if it is not a long-term project. And this means that in the case of short-term cooperation, it is better to make a choice in favor of other options.
Obstacles in communication
Even if you speak the same language, communication and interaction will not be as seamless as with colleagues in your office. First, you have to take into account the difference in time zones, which leads to delays in the workflow and the inability to urgently respond to urgent alerts from different parts of the world. And secondly, the fact of the lack of personal communication can lead to misunderstandings, errors in interpretation, and other challenges.
However, the huge possibilities of virtual interaction today certainly reduce these risks to a minimum.
How Does It Work?
As we have already mentioned, the dedicated software development team works in the same way as full-time specialists. Setting up workflows covers several steps necessary to organize collaboration and agree on all partnership points.
- Coordination of the project, goals, and requirements. First of all, it is necessary to analyze the project, evaluate the scope of work, determine goals and objectives, discuss the terms of cooperation, identify the necessary specialists, establish the required skills and competencies, agree on the necessary results to be achieved, and discuss the partnership budget. As a result of this stage, both sides must come up with the overall vision of the project and a list of clear requirements for specialists for the most efficient team selection.
- Selection of specialists and recruitment of a team for the project. After successfully completing the initial stage of discussing the requirements, goals, and objectives of the project and agreeing on the terms of cooperation and workflow, the next step is to directly set up a team. The key goal here is to select developers who will be as efficient and optimal as possible to complete the tasks, based on the collected requirements. In fact, at this stage, all interviews with potential candidates are carried out and the conditions for further partnership are being formed. As a result of this phase, the client gets selected specialists with the right set of skills and the necessary experience, who are ready to start working on the project.
- Implementation of a dedicated team in a client’s project. Now that the people for the project have been selected, the development team must get acquainted with the project and fully immerse themselves in the business. As a result of this incorporation into the project, the developers must completely understand the challenges they face and the results they need to achieve. Dedicated specialists should have a clear vision of the way to the final goal.
- Formation of reporting principles and ways to control the workflow. Team members and stakeholders finally agree on all processes, reporting, and control over work performance. The client must be aware of each stage of development and control all workflows. One of the main features of this model is the absolute transparency of work. So, as a result of this stage, there should be a full agreement on how this will be achieved.
- Starting work on the project. When all work processes are established, the formed team starts working on the implementation of the project. The client side assigns tasks to dedicated developers, just as it would happen within its own in-house team. As a result, the project is launched and the hired team is fully engaged in the business.
How to Choose a Dedicated Development Team?
The selection of a team is individual in each case and for each project. While there is no one-size-fits-all winning solution that guarantees the successful choice of experienced professionals and the formation of a reliable team, there are tips and secrets that will definitely help to build a trusted dedicated team.
So, how do you find and hire the right development partner to get advanced services and achieve all the desired results within the project?
Here are our top life hacks.
Set business goals and clearly determine the vision of the project
Conduct an internal analysis of the project and realize what results you want to achieve. This will give you an idea of what team you need. Also, pay attention to whether your potential technical partner offers any solutions from their point of view. This will let you realize how the dedicated crew understands your business and how ready it is to dive into your project.
Take into account the size and specifics of a potential partner
Features such as the scale and structure of the company are crucial parameters when choosing a technical provider. Paying attention to the size of the company will allow you to make sure that the team can handle your project and do it at the highest level. Keep in mind that the larger the company, the more flexible the solutions will be, the faster your team will scale, and the more effective the exchange of skills and expertise will be.
Consider timing and flexibility
Most likely, if you decide to use the services of dedicated specialists, it means that you do not have the necessary personnel or time resources within the team. If you want the project to be implemented as quickly as possible, be sure to agree on the availability of developers and the speed of completion of the agreed scope of work. Discuss exactly how your partnership will be carried out in the short and long term, and most importantly, how quickly it will be launched. Sometimes it is the timing that can become an important criterion when choosing a service provider.
Fully align the recruitment process
Find out how the process of selecting a dedicated team for your project will be carried out. Specify what criteria will be taken into account when choosing, what is the recruitment model, and what are the terms of recruiting. The approach to forming a dedicated crew can tell you a lot about further cooperation.
Make sure communication is smooth and transparent
The success of the project implementation largely depends on how correctly the ideas, requirements, goals, and vision of the project were understood by the sides. To achieve the desired results, team members must first clearly understand them. You must not have linguistic and communication obstacles with your outsourcing employees. Only such an approach will ensure close cooperation, which will result in effective, long-term, and customer-focused partnership.
Explore the portfolio of company cases: challenges and solutions
Every company has failures, but not all are ready to talk about them. It is important for you, as a potential client, to learn everything not only about victories but also about losses. Ask everything about the causes of the problems and how the team coped with the difficulties. This will allow you to realize how the team will deal with challenges that may arise during the implementation of your project. That is why experience, both successful and not very successful, is a very important parameter when choosing a technical partner.
Feel the corporate culture
Collaboration based on the dedicated team model implies close and permanent contact with the provider’s company. Therefore, your values must certainly intersect in order for the partnership to be as comfortable and effective as possible. Make sure that you can easily communicate with team members and that their culture matches your business culture. Only this can become a solid basis for long-term, transparent, and productive cooperation. You should fit each other and both parties must feel comfortable working together.
Check how the dedicated team works
There are several ways to do this. First, you can contact those who have already worked with this company. Find out if they were satisfied with the collaboration, communication, and outcomes. Recommendations from third parties will give you a real picture of a potential partnership and future joint project.
Second, you can work with a dedicated team in test mode. The test project will allow you to evaluate the experience, background, and skills of potential partners, as well as how they carry out development and how productive and comfortable your joint cooperation is. In this way, you will be able to build reliable and long-term business relationships.
Our dedicated developers are ready to show their experience and skills in practice. Leave a request, and our specialists will analyze the project and offer an effective solution for scaling your business.
Choose Brights to get advanced development services, build trusted relationships, and achieve all your business goals. Our dedicated team is about well-established workflows, transparent communication, diverse experience, topnotch services, complete immersion, and a result-oriented approach.
Contact us, entrust us with your project, and get the desired results in the shortest possible time and at an affordable cost.