How to manage a dedicated development team

The software development life cycle involves many stages – all-important – that a dedicated development team must take care of. Of course, this team has all the necessary profiles, but the companies that hire them must also be very clear about how to handle them satisfactorily.

Working with an internal software development team is perhaps the most natural: they are permanent contracts, the team works face-to-face, and management is much more direct by the project managers. In the case of a dedicated development team, the dynamic changes a bit.

For example, the nature of the dedicated development teams is remote, they are temporary subcontracts and they are external personnel, they are not part of the workforce of the company that hires them.

Table of Contents

• Reasons why dedicated development teams are in such high demand
• Tips to manage a dedicated development team in the best way
• Mistakes to avoid when working with a dedicated development team

Reasons why dedicated development teams are in such high demand

The very nature of dedicated development teams allows them to be very flexible, a characteristic that is one of the most attractive factors when hiring.

Other features are:

• Transparency in workflows.
• Scalable team.
• Extensive experience in the industry.
• Deep understanding of the requirements of a project.
• Absolute management of the entire development process.
• The committed team focused on your project.
• Optimize costs.

Tips to manage a dedicated development team in the best way

Communication

It is the most basic and also the most important. With timely communication, the dedicated development team and the internal team will understand each other without misunderstanding or confusion. Set up instant communication tools to stay up to date and use cloud apps to sync all resources, reports and progress.

Read more: 3 keys to implement Staff Augmentation in your company

Synchronization

Since the dedicated development team often works remotely, set up daily or weekly meetings with them at a certain time of day to discuss the project and what they need. This will allow everyone to know how the project is going, walking hand in hand towards the same direction. Only with synchronization can the project objectives be achieved efficiently.

Reports

Ask your dedicated development team to write reports on a daily or weekly basis explaining the week's work, what was achieved, what went wrong. This is a kind of record of the progress of the project, which helps the company to know what stage the project is at.

Expectations

From the beginning of the project, the company must make its expectations clear to the dedicated development team. Thus, the team will know the scope of the project and its objectives, to work according to that.

Mistakes to avoid when working with a dedicated development team

• Have strict deadlines. In the development of a product many situations can arise that can add more time to the project, delay deliveries and that is not necessarily bad. You just have to be a little flexible to be able to face these adjustments in delivery times.
• Do not trust the dedicated development team. As a company, you have to know how to delegate work and trust the team you just hired. The project manager gives instructions and the team executes autonomously. Mistrust will only make your project fail.
• Hiring a dedicated development team vendor without proper investigation. You must analyze the expertise, the experience, the reviews of their previous clients, the technologies and security standards they handle, as well as the development methodologies they use.
• Choose the cheapest dedicated development team. Many companies do not have a big budget and choose the cheapest supplier, but they must also think about quality. Never prioritize price over quality.

Do you need a dedicated development team in your project? At Rootstack, we have +10 years supporting companies in their digital transformation. Contact us!

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