Successful companies nowadays strive to be at the top of their game when it comes to client satisfaction, process optimization, and financial results. In the digital age, businesses need to differentiate from the rest and offer great customer experience, no matter what industry they are operating in. To do so companies need to be fast and efficient in every aspect. The answer to all this is technology. Technology is here to help us and we all know that. This is the reason why companies seek scalable and personalized solutions that fit their business needs and help their business grow. There are a lot of ready solutions out there that could do the job to a certain extent. However, if you would like to be at the top, the best way to do so is to build your own solution.
Hiring a dedicated team to build your custom business solution is an important step for your company. That is why it is vital to select your team wisely.
There are several important aspects which you would need to consider when choosing your dedicated team:
Skills & experience
Undoubtedly, your development team should possess the necessary skills to develop your business solution. Make sure the chosen team has the necessary experience related to the solution you are looking for. Also, do your best to communicate with them in order to identify how they work. If you would like to ensure the consistency and quality of the software, you would need to make sure that the team follows good standards and best practices in terms of development processes like test driven development, continuous integration tools and regular sprint and code reviews.
Organizational structure and right leadership
Even if your chosen development team consists of highly skilled developers, the project could be a failure if the development process is not managed by an experienced project manager or a technical team lead. The project manager should possess strong technical knowledge, organizational and leadership skills as he is the one who guides and assists the development team during the whole project. Usually this person is your main point of contact and is in constant communication with you regarding project related topics. The team lead will be responsible for finding the right mix of programming development practices: sprint planning, estimates, code reviews and so on. The lead will be responsible for the Project Tracking on a strategic level.
Agile Approach
The best approach when working with a dedicated team on a complex and long-term software projects is to use Agile Development Methodology. Basically this means that instead of the outdated waterfall model you can develop your project gradually by first defining your top priority requirements. Usually the development process is separated in iterations, also called sprints. In the beginning of each sprint you set the respective goals by closely discussing them with the Project Manager. One of the most used Agile Development Methodologies is Scrum. It is used for managing complex software development projects and is associated with high volatility factors. Scrum development methodology is flexible and relatively simple. It provides high visibility into the project status allowing easy monitoring and better strategic planning.
Communication and Team Spirit
A characteristic of the dedicated development team engagement model is that the hired team would be 100% dedicated to your business for the duration of your contract. That is why it is important to set up a strong team spirit which would bond your team and the dedicated team as one. Constant contact should be held, preferably between your Project Manager and the Project Manager on site of the development team. Communication could be conducted with daily stand up or regular sprint review meetings held by video conference calls, email and collaboration tools for formal communication. Using specific project management tools is a good way to increase efficiency. It is good to arrange occasional face-to-face meetings to build trust. The frequency of those meetings depends on the specific project and required level of introduction to the project and/or training. Also, have in mind that your dedicated team is there not only to transform your ideas into reality but also to consult you and help you in your decision. Make use of your dedicated team Know-How and take advantage of their consultations.
Productivity
A project is not well done if it is not accompanied by a good documentation. Insist that your development team documents everything they do so that you reduce any misunderstandings. You should strive to improve team collaboration in every possible way. To do this, you need to identify the right tools for this purpose:
- Team and project management
- Bug and issue tracking
- Documents collaboration
- Code review system
- Source code and repository management
- Release management (continuous integration)
High value-added
Considering all of the above, by hiring a dedicated team of experienced professional developers, you will build a reliable solution which would accommodate the growth of your business.
Here at Devision, we develop complex and long-term web and mobile solutions for various businesses and industries. To do it we provide direct access to our talent pool with software engineers and UX designers to create a dedicated development team managed by an experienced Team Lead. For our development process we use test-driven development, continuous integration tools and Scrum with two-week sprints. We do daily stand up meetings, regular reviews after each sprint is completed and use various software tools to handle the rest of the communication and project progress tracking (Jira, Basecamp, Bitbucket and others). You can have a look at some of the projects we have completed:
Business Network Platform Development for Copybook
GIS Data Management Mobile App
Case Management System for the Bulgarian Chamber of Private Enforcement Agents
We would love to speak with you about your project. See our contact details here.