Building a Software Development Team

It’s never too easy to build a dedicated development team if you know not of its members or you haven’t even seen them. It is a challenge most clients face as they consider partnering with an offshore IT service provider company. Yes, it is currently a very popular approach in building a software development team as it is being accepted and adopted by a lot of companies whose software has been built by a remote team but it also has its own challenges other than the trust issue.

List of the Content

• Building a software development team: challenges of dedicated development
• How to build a software development team 
• Process of building a software development team
• Models of building a software development team
• How to build a good software development team
• In conclusion

BUILDING A SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT TEAM: CHALLENGES OF DEDICATED DEVELOPMENT

• A project is usually an ongoing process that requires the members’ full comprehension of every step they take for them to completely fulfill the client’s requirements. However, if there is poor direct communication between the developer and the client, they will have to build software with the little information that they have and the end-product may not be what was required of them.
• Balancing of technical debts and feature development for completion before commercial deadlines. With a timeframe for every project, there is always pressure on the team to finish up fast. Some features may be chosen to skip as they feel unnecessarily wasting their time and the worst part is the project manager turning a blind eye to that. Therefore, adequate time, as well as full support needs to be provided to deal with the technical debt as well as the feature development.
• Also, projects with sophisticated workloads, rare project management tools and techniques, and unfamiliar technologies, can hinder the smooth working progress. Such projects usually require specific talented individuals to build a software development team which can be hard to come by. And even when specialists do, it takes time as they have to continuously learn to fully grasp all the requirements. List of tools for the remote software development team management.
• Building a software development team, it is expected that the client provides the necessary infrastructure and resources. With these, the developers can rely on in order to carry on with their work. With cases, such as poor funding and inadequate provision of other empowerment tools, they will be limited to making technical decisions as well as managing necessary changes for the project.

HOW TO BUILD A SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT TEAM

Building a software development team is a process that requires the two parties to surpass the above challenges for the project to commence and proceed well. This is possible when the client-developer relationship remains mutual and beneficial. This should be based on three pillars which include understanding, trust, and cooperation from the start which is the hiring process that should involve:

Spotting motivated people

Coming across teams that share the same ideologies, principles, and qualities with you, have respect for the production of quality work, can be difficult. First, they need to fit into your requirements as far as skills and experience are concerned. In addition, you need to have individuals who are self-motivated and willing to put all their energy into your project. This will allow you to bypass micromanagement and save time as such they can independently make technical decisions, easily organize themself. With motivated professionals, you can be certain of positive and fruitful progress while building a successful software development team.

Do they offer service packs?

Most software development service provider companies offer service packs such as analytics and project management and quality assurance features; it is an indication that they have efficiently tested the software development and business workflow of various projects. Accepting such services will cut your expenditure as compared to when you decline them and later, have to incur extra costs for them.

Do you fully trust your dedicated team?

The whole hiring process is all about finding a way to trust the people you are hiring to build a software development team and there are more ways you can further do that:

• Check the specialists’ competence in websites that provide the company category ranking, rating, and reviews like Clutch.co
• You can choose to further get in touch with their previous client for more information about their working.
• Check out their work progress on sites like GitHub, Quora, Dribble, and Behance as a confirmation that they do fulfill your expiations and product requirements.

Note however that physical presence at the workplace is not an assurance of the work progress. Plus, with Agile methodologies such as Scrum, you can have transparent management of the workflow when building a software development team remotely.

PROCESS OF BUILDING A SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT TEAM

Contact the developer

Inform the outsourcing provider of your project’s scope, the framework as well as all the resources you require in terms of the number of specialists and technologies required among other requirements.

Balance your requirements with the contractor

From your requirements, the developer brings together individuals with specific skill sets and experiences matching up fully to your expectations and requirements.

Hire dedicated developers

For more clarity and certainty, the outsourcing provider will sit down with these individuals to further assess them and confirm that they actually meet your technical and communication skills requirements.

Manage a development team

Without wasting any more time, the developers immediately start to work while you manage the dedicated development team as well as the work progress.

Scale the team

For the sake of increasing your project’s progression pace when building a successful software development team and cutting off unnecessary costs, the dedicated model would be a great choice.

MODELS OF BUILDING A SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT TEAM

Onsite management by the client approach

When you build a software development team in this model, the hiring of specialists and working on the project from the start to completion is done under the direct client’s control. Precise control is achieved by placing members at the client’s side or moving the dedicated client’s representative e.g. project manager to the offshore location. They will have a chance to have face-face communication with the client or his representative which results in a maximum comprehension of the client’s requirements on the frameworks, project scope as well as policies. With this model, there are rare chances of them missing any step of the process because of direct control and management.

This is an appropriate approach on how to build your offshore team working there on the product as the client saves on the cost of having a project manager but will have to exhaust themselves on managing the development process by themselves.

Off-site management by the client approach

This approach is suitable where there is a small team working remotely on developing the product. The client chooses to remain away from the outsourcing contractor’s location or visit the dedicated development center from time to time, while developers handle the project from the start until completion. However, the project manager from the client’s side can be assigned to ensure better management and control. The project manager can partially work at both locations and spend, let’s say two months of the year in the dedicated center. It is a combination of the offsite or onsite model for the assigned project manager’s end.
Regardless of the PM’s location, they are required to have an interactive engagement with the client while they update them on the progress. The project manager acts as an intermediary between the developers and the client. The client will, however, have to incur the cost of their labor aside but will, in turn, have some burden off the shoulders.

Onsite management by the contractor approach

In this model, among the services packs offered by the developer, there could be the provision of project management to handle the project. He/she also handles the development team from the start to the completion. The developer’s manager resides at the team’s site and maintains constant and frequent communication with the client for updates on the project’s progress. They also act as a middleman between the developers and the client, it is an expensive model but you have relief from managing the process by yourself. Also, the client can assign his PM to work alongside the contractor’s manager directly. From our experience, this is not necessary and the experienced in the outsourcing projects PM can replace management from the client’s side completely to act as a fully-fledged member of the client team.

HOW TO BUILD A GOOD SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT TEAM

This is the part where you as the client, become responsible for solving the challenges that come with how to build the dedicated software development team remotely. It is not an easy task to have a team overseas working on a product for the success of your business at ease. However, with the promising results of using a remote team, it is a risk worth taking and working on it. Here are a number of effective ways you can use:

Have submission of periodic modules of the project

Instead of waiting for the full completion of the product, you can divide the project into tasks. The specialists are expected to deliver the divided portion results after a certain period of time. This allows you to: have a specific time frame for completion; easily put into account the project’s timeline and costs as well as be flexible and easily adapt the necessary changes to the product.

Maintain an interactive relationship by taking advantage of the overlapping times

To effectively build a software development team, constant communication between you and the developers is essential. You can choose a period of time in which your time over lapses with them and have a meeting by using tools such as WebEx and Skype to hold online conferences. These meetings allow the developers to provide the project’s progress and you can help them solve any issues they could be going through.

Empower the team with the relevant information concerning the project

Use scrum boards as an agile technique to manage the dedicated development services. Create a scrum board that you, the project team, and the PM can use for transparency of the project as it will ensure everyone can access the progress of the tasks thus, keeping everyone involved.

IN CONCLUSION

At the end of the day, you require a software development company that allows you to build a remote team with ease. Existek is the leading offshore dedicated development center services provider in Ukraine. We have dedicated ourselves to ensuring our clients have nothing less than a committed team and one that is motivated to invest all their energy and effort into the project.

We have years of experience in providing IT services to our clients therefore, we have developed an eye for high-quality experts talented in different IT areas. Contact us directly to get an instant consultation or visit our dedicated software development team service homepage to learn more. Hit us up if you are in search of building a software development team and we will provide you with an unforgettable excellent experience.