In many companies, software development ties up time and resources for which there is often insufficient capacity. The solution can be an external development team. Find out exactly how in this article!
Software development ties up time and resources in many companies, for which there is often not enough capacity available, especially with the increasing shortage of skilled workers. On the other hand, it is precisely these resources that are crucial if you want to launch your project as quickly as possible or bring a product to market.
The solution can be an external development team that supports your in-house team and frees up capacity. For this to work, however, the team should not only have all the specialist skills, it must also fit seamlessly into your work structure. In this guide, we will show you how you can ensure this.
The most important advantages of working with a development team at a glance:
- Brings individual expertise & supplements missing roles to suit your project
- Flexible deployment possible (e.g. project-bound or over an open period of time)
- Hardly any management overhead & up to 40% more cost-efficient than an in-house team
What is a development team?
A development team helps you to implement your software projects faster and more flexibly. The external team brings specific know-how to your in-house team and expands its personnel and time capacities – or an entire development team is dedicated to a specific project. This minimizes your risk and shortens the go-to-market time.
How is a development team structured?
A development team consists of various roles that cover all areas of software development. It is crucial that each team member brings special expertise to the table, but that all roles are interlinked when working together. The roles in an ideally composed development team include
- Software developer: software development & coding
- UX/UI designer: user interface, usability & functionality
- DevOps engineer: coordination with operations & seamless integration
- Scrum master: team leadership & agile implementation
- Project manager: overall responsibility for planning & coordination
- QA Engineer: quality control & compliance with standards
If you are working with a development team, you can either request specific roles or set up an entire team including all roles. Which option is right for you always depends on your individual requirements.
How big should a software development team be?
Just like the distribution of roles, the ideal size of a software development team also depends on your specific project. In our experience, a Scrum development team is usually between five and eight people, but more or fewer people may be necessary.
The most important thing is that all relevant roles are covered and that you define the requirements precisely with the provider before outsourcing a software development team.
What are the tasks of a development team?
The main task of an external development team is to solve your problem and develop high-quality and sustainable software. If the team takes on an entire project, it will support you in all phases of software development. However, it can also only take on individual tasks, depending on the distribution of roles.
Basically, the following points belong to the tasks of a software development team:
- Precisely define the requirements for the project & add to them in a targeted manner
- Clean & sustainable coding and development of the product
- Ongoing testing and validation of the deliverable results
- Quality assurance (QA)
- Implementation of agile development principles
- Documentation for later users & knowledge transfer where necessary
- Regular feedback & seamless integration into your company structure
Fast & flexible:
Your advantages when working with a Scrum development team
Having software developed has some decisive advantages over in-house implementation:
- Fast implementation: you efficiently shorten the go-to-market time if you lack the resources
- External know-how: You supplement your own team with the expertise you lack in a targeted manner
- Calculable costs: You can calculate the costs for an external team much more accurately & manage them transparently
- No personnel management: You bear no personnel risk and receive flexible support
- Retain control: You retain operational decision-making power without having to manage an additional team
“Traditional” software development vs. agile software development?
Development teams also offer you the advantages mentioned above because they generally work according to agile principles or Scrum. Even if your company does not otherwise work in an agile manner, this can be useful for software development. Of course, this does not mean that “classic” methods have had their day.
But even if your in-house team is more plan-driven, an agile development team can be the ideal complement to drive certain projects forward more quickly. The trick is to bring the two worlds together in such a way that the different approaches complement each other effectively.
In practice, this means, for example, that the budget, timeline and results are planned in advance and the cross-functional development team organizes itself independently within these guidelines. This results in minimal effort for you, while you benefit from maximum efficiency.
Challlenges & solutions:
Is this really the right thing for us?
Outsourcing software development to a development team or bringing external team members into your own team can raise some questions. After all, you may not know exactly how the external team works and how well they can integrate. There are a few typical points that companies often find challenging:
- Competence: in order for the development team to be able to solve your complex problem, the employees must be appropriately qualified. Therefore, make sure that a service provider can transparently demonstrate these qualifications.
- Scalability: It is often difficult to estimate exactly how many additional employees you will need at the start of a software project. A competent service provider can not only advise you in this regard, but also adapt the development team to your requirements.
- Transparency: Many companies fear losing control of their project if they bring in an external development team. Open communication, a contact person for questions and regular feedback rounds are therefore essential.
- Time frame: Some problems require very short-term support, others require long-term collaboration – you should communicate your requirements clearly and make sure that your service provider can offer the required timeframe.
- Costs: Implementing software development internally involves costs that are difficult to calculate. Many companies assume that this is similar when working with an external development team. However, the opposite is true if the service provider provides you with a transparent breakdown of the cost structure.
As you can see, the reservations about working with a development team are not unfounded. It is therefore important that you formulate your concerns clearly and discuss them transparently with a service provider before the collaboration begins.
This is how it works:
Find & hire a dedicated software development team
There are basically two options for finding an external development team: Either you hire freelancers and put the team together yourself or you contact a service provider who provides the team for you.
The first option may sound more flexible at first glance, but you have to invest a lot of time in screening and onboarding without being able to guarantee that the members will be able to work together efficiently.
A service provider like Riwers, on the other hand, provides you with software teams of certified specialists who fit seamlessly into your work and organizational structures. This gives you tailor-made support according to your individual requirements and reduces your business risk at the same time.
If you need reinforcement for your project, please contact us and we will discuss together how we can set up the right development team.
Riwers relies on nearshore software development and an international team of highly qualified developers at our two locations in Switzerland and Slovakia. The advantages: shared cultural values, the highest training standards, legal security, maximum flexibility and 40 percent lower costs than with a permanent development team.
Agile & successful:
Fast & cost-efficient on the market with a development team
If you want to implement a software project efficiently without having to worry about exploding costs or hiring hard-to-find specialists, then outsourcing to an external development team is a sensible solution. This allows you to create additional resources while remaining flexible and reducing time-to-market.