Most CIOs fear scaling dedicated software teams when creating an unwavering organizational plan because it is a laborious, intricate process requiring various skill sets.
Speaking with colleagues in the sector, we notice that most of them concentrate on three main factors: expansion of market-fit products, enhancement of features, and growth.
However, the majority of CIOs frequently neglect the path to enhancing sustainability and resilience in their companies. Understanding the fundamentals of digital transformation is crucial, regardless of how you build, expand, and add value to your products using custom software. True sustainability can be achieved only by investing in and creating supportive procedures and infrastructure that allow them to stay current and relevant.
Why is Scaling Dedicated Software Teams Important for Project Growth?
Business scaling is one path that leads to growth, which is a destination.
In simple terms, growth is adding. Growth includes acquiring new clients, generating income, and even expanding your workforce. However, scaling is a process as well as a strategy to effectively facilitate this expansion.
It is more of a framework that gives operations, workflows, and the software development process structure, allowing an organization to increase efficiency. To prevent efforts from being lost by needless additions made in the name of progress, it explicitly identifies the areas that require transformation.
In software engineering, the most effective scaling techniques are timely. Being a leader requires you to possess predictive vertical and horizontal vision to analyze if it’s the right time for scaling engineering teams.
If you are looking for precise reasons, you can read our previous blog on the benefits of dedicated software teams for business.
What is the Dedicated Software Teams Model and How Does it Work?
It’s all in the name. A group of developers providing software development services for a set amount of time is called a dedicated team. Until the project is finished and successfully launched, the client and the service provider or business are bound by a formal contract.
They won’t work on any other projects or activities after the contract is signed. They will devote all of their time, energy, attention, and resources to achieving the intended outcome, in this case, project development.
Additionally, they will tailor the project to your requirements and take accountability for all project outcomes. Overall, they will be uniquely meeting all of your needs.
Discover how a dedicated Software Team model can benefit your project
What are the Challenges Faced While Scaling Dedicated Development Teams?
One of the most obvious indicators of organizational growth is the addition of new individuals to your resource pool. You need to make sure that this expansion is sufficiently sustainable. A few inevitable problems could arise if your software ecosystem isn’t prepared to handle the boost of resource growth:
Quality and Productivity
The saying “too many cooks spoil the broth” is familiar to you. Yes, it is true for IT companies as well. Your organization’s approach to problem-solving may differ from that of your recently added resources, who have their own ideas and methods for handling urgent problems. In the absence of a process workflow, even simple procedures may jeopardize, causing bottlenecks and reduced productivity.
Project Management and Planning
With so many resources at your disposal, team management and planning must be done with extreme efficiency. A capable project manager who understands each team member’s unique skill set and can assign them to pertinent initiatives is essential. Unplanned scaling combined with a lack of project management focus is a surefire way to fail.
Codebase and Architecture
Your software development architecture and coding techniques are two important areas to optimize before growing your development staff. Examine the scalability of your software platform and make sure it is built on strong architectural frameworks and well-written code.
When trying to grow their software development teams, both new businesses and established companies make some serious mistakes. But these errors can be easily avoided with focused attention. Below are the mistakes to avoid.
Crucial Mistakes to Avoid While Scaling Dedicated Software Teams
Do not divide based on areas of expertise
It can be a bad idea to split up teams into front-end, back-end, or similar teams because you won’t have a single team capable of producing a completely functional product element. Teams become more reliant on one another as a result, and communication becomes more complicated.
Encourage group accountability
Each person is naturally responsible for their tasks and areas of competence. When half of the team has finished their task while the other half is still working, problems may occur. Encourage teamwork by making sure everyone is aware that they are all accountable for completing their portion of the project.
Ideal length for sprinting
Long sprints disrupt the development’s rhythm. Two weeks is the ideal sprint duration. For startups in particular, these sprints offer rapid feedback loops and project modifications. Additionally, they provide a sense of steady, progressive progress, which produces quicker outcomes.
Soft skills are important
Hard skills are unquestionably vital, particularly in technical roles like quality assurance engineer and developer, but soft skills are just as important. Additionally crucial are adaptability, collaboration, curiosity, and the capacity to tackle unconventional problems, particularly when the business is expanding rapidly.
Your teams will constantly evolve as you scale, adding new members. As a result, choosing applicants with great communication skills and high flexibility is crucial. Faster development is not always ensured by having more developers. This mistake frequently happens to “non-techies.”
Building an application is similar to building a house. Increasing the number of developers accelerates development up to a certain point, but there is a limit.
Strategies for Dedicated Software Team Development
Before you begin to scale your software development team, a bespoke software product development company must have a solid foundation within their firm. Before venturing into uncharted territory, you should simplify your digital strategy, team culture, success metrics, and even your organization’s mission and vision.
Here’s the checklist:
1. Establishing objectives and goals
Here are some questions to ask yourself! What is your main goal when it comes to growing your development team?
- Do you wish to enter new geolocations with your business?
- Would you like to add more leadership positions?
- Is your team lacking new ideas and motivation?
Whatever your motivations, you need to have very specific goals before spending time and money on the process. Since they are the ones who make decisions for the company, it is normal to encounter early opposition from the internal team since they are too accustomed to the current procedure. It takes work to get used to a new procedure, therefore you need to make it easier for them by being open and providing clear explanations.
It’s crucial to discuss streamlining your workflow at this point. Depending on your needs, you may choose to maintain the current workflows or develop new ones. Whatever it is, you must first have a thorough understanding of these matters before communicating them to the team.
2. Creating a roadmap
Documentation is a crucial step in extending your dedicated software teams and putting workflow optimization ideas into practice. Because it keeps all parties involved in software development outsourcing on the same page, documentation is a crucial component.
When creating a process blueprint, you need to make sure it is as thorough as possible. Establish iterative milestones with precise development objectives and due dates. To guarantee that every objective is accurately achieved, incorporate an excellent review mechanism with each milestone. Because images and charts convey objectives and requirements more effectively than words, use them in your blueprint. Even if you have a limited amount of time, incorporate a good review system. Even throughout projects, priorities shift, so you need to schedule time for evaluation, incorporating feedback, and working on new objectives.
3. Select appropriate technology and establish appropriate procedures
The goal of emerging technology is to make our lives easier, not only create new applications. Additionally, you must be used to managing a variety of tasks using automated procedures and improved communication tools as you facilitate growing technology.
4. Including a plan for process improvement
Process improvement is a key component of the development plan. Modernized workflows cannot be incorporated into outdated procedures. You must establish a new procedure with marquee ceremonies like sprint planning and review, sprint retrospectives, daily standups, and backlog grooming after the KPIs have been allocated to your resources. Additionally, you must seize unaccounted-for jobs and assign them to professionals with specialized training.
5. Effective hiring
Your team is the foundation of your process, and having the right resources on board is crucial to achieving your digital objectives efficiently and on schedule. Hiring the “right” dedicated software teams is a difficult task, though. When hiring software developers for your tech team, you need to consider several factors, including their experience portfolio, efficiency, and problem-solving mindset.
The organizational culture and workflow must drastically change to scale. There may be times when you require someone with a certain set of talents, or you may need someone to help guide your internal team. It makes sense to enlist specialized development teams to assist in these situations.
6. Staying agile
Because it ultimately comes down to adaptability, an increasing number of enterprises are turning to the agile idea of software development every day. It’s important to keep in mind that your objective while expanding your development team is to create a cross-functional team that shares responsibility for the final result.
In a fast-paced industry, collaboration is a vital tool for dedicated software teams, and each team member must be able to self-organize. Your cross-functional teams will be able to deliver targets gradually within the mutually agreed-upon time and cost if you maintain an agile strategy.
Conclusion
Your company can benefit from dedicated software teams’ high level of expertise, flexibility, scalability, and quicker time to market.
Upscaling is undoubtedly a difficult process, but you will be better equipped to manage the fallout once you commit to creating a robust ecosystem that can support these quick changes. Scaling aids in identifying areas that require more attention because it is more of a strategy than a development process. You can work with a committed software partner to efficiently simplify company purpose, vision, and culture in addition to your tech foundation and procedures. You can rethink your procedures and view prospects differently with the aid of our software product development services.
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Author
A seasoned tech leader with 20+ years of experience, Nisha drives global business development and client relations at People10.