3 Core Strategies for Maximizing the Value of the Dedicated Development Team

Create strong teams which the company will grow even in times of crisis. Let's explore the engagement models in more detail with software experts.

21:35 08 December 2022

You are a business maverick, but not a software development expert? While you can identify the need for new software solutions in your business, you can't sit behind a computer and bang on a keyboard to get the results? Therefore, hiring a dedicated development team can be the answer. 

Create strong teams which the company will grow with even in times of crisis. Let's explore the engagement models in more detail with software experts from Intelvision.

Core Benefits of Working with a Dedicated Development Team

Imagine building the house with an electrician, a plumber, and a roofer, but no general contractor to steer everybody toward a specific goal. You would end up with disjointed results.

The same is in the IT sector: any developer can create an isolated software product, but it won't work properly or be accompanied by additional costs due to team miscommunication. The dedicated development team puts a product into production, monitors and repairs bugs, maintains the system, and assesses issues. It can become a trusted partner committed to helping you achieve business success. When the dedicated development team takes ownership, they know exactly what is important and what's not. The quality of output becomes better aligned with the company vision. 

When the Dedicated Team Model is the Most Efficient 

The Dedicated Team model is a great fit for many projects and companies all around the industries. However, it works best in the following cases:

• In long-term projects with broad scopes and potential changes in requirements.
• When dealing with a one-time tech project that does not justify hiring an in-house team.
• When the in-house team is focused on other development projects and cannot be further burdened with more work.
• When your in-house team lacks experience and/or expertise related to the project. 

3 Keys To Maximizing the Value of the Dedicated Development Team

By implementing certain main measures, you will maximize the value of your investment.

Clarity

Determine who is responsible for what, who owns each component, what is our process vision, what strategies will you use, and what is our core purpose. When your team consists of 20 or even 50 people, months can evaporate while resolving emerging issues. Avoid this by gaining clarity for every stage of the development process. 

When management makes important, non-confidential decisions, they also should be communicated to employees as soon as possible. Problems within the company often arise when management withholds important information. 

Team

Ask yourself what functional roles you need on your team to achieve your goals. Then evaluate whether the people you choose to fill those functional roles exhibit values in harmony with your company's. 

By purposefully building a DDT aligned with your business vision, mission, and values, you can maximize the value of the team. Why is that important? According to a Gallup study, in Western Europe, only 10% of employees are engaged in projects in the workplace. The rest are poorly involved and do the minimum that helps don't get fired. 

At the same time, lack of motivation, involvement and engagement among employees hit the wallet of organizations. According to Gallup, these workers cost the US economy $605 billion a year. Mission, values and cultural fit is one of the factors that increase interest, engagement, and productivity at work.

Process

Everyone from the team—both in-house and hired—should own and take responsibility for a certain part of your development process. You also need a process owner who is acutely aware of how your development team operates. This person organizes the processes in the development team, and not only:

• He transforms user stories into final requirements for developers.
• Organizes workflows in the development team.
• Arranges and attends all Agile and Scrum team meetings. 
• Gives feedback on the time frame for the team to implement the plan developed by the project manager. 
• Passes client requests to developers.

Process improvements also aren't possible without feedback loops. However, according to Gallup, 74% of employees say they lack information and news about their place of work. Other studies show that 72% of professionals are unfamiliar with a company's strategy.

But don't go overboard with meetings and providing feedback in meeting mode. Researchers from HBS and Boston University surveyed 182 senior managers across industries. About 65% said meetings interfere with their core work, and 71% said most meetings were ineffective. According to statistics, every month an employee spends 31 hours or almost 4 working days on unproductive meetings.

Constant meetings are the reason why critical business tasks take longer to complete. Employees of all levels regularly complain that the flow of meetings prevents them from engaging in meaningful issues and in-depth analytics. Implement a "no-meeting day". Just one meeting-free day a week will allow your in-house and hired teams to focus better and get more done. If the workflow is not interrupted by endless meetings, the team will be able to make significant progress in completing their core tasks.

Finally, get feedback from the team. Do IT specialists have enough time to complete tasks? Do meetings help you reach your goals, or just make you tired? The answers will help determine how often meetings should be held.

Last But Not Least: Get Clear on Your "Why"

Whether you want to begin the development process with the dedicated team in one week or five years, start getting ready now. Clarify why you want to hire dedicated software specialists: to achieve your goals faster? Find better talent? Beat the competition? Knowing your "‎why"‎ will help to set up to win when you do move forward with a development team.

And keep in mind that transparent communication and keeping the team up to date on everything that's going on is the key to the successful development and collaboration processes.