A dedicated software development team is a collaboration model where a client hires an outsourced team consisting of a project manager, software developers, QA testers, and other professionals provided by the software development vendor.
Using a dedicated software development team is a proven business approach to build software products at a lower cost. That’s why this model is popular among both startups and large businesses that prefer a cost-effective alternative to in-house development.
In this guide, you’ll learn more about dedicated project teams, their pros and cons, and strategies to manage one.
Table of contents:
- What is a dedicated development team?
- Advantages of dedicated software project teams
- Dedicated development team structure
- How to manage a dedicated development team
- Example: IDAP’s dedicated development team’s process
Hire a dedicated team from a trusted vendor with a 4.9 rating on Clutch.
What is a Dedicated Software Development Team?
A dedicated software development team is an outsourced team of carefully selected professionals with specific skills to complete a particular software product. The term “dedicated” means that the team works full-time only on one project.
Dedicated software development teams are outsourced, which means they are located in regions like Eastern Europe, Latin America, and Asia. That’s why the cost of using dedicated teams can be up to 70% lower without sacrificing the quality of software products.
The global IT outsourcing market is worth $318+ billion and should hit $425 billion in five years, which proves the effectiveness of this software development approach. But should your company outsource?
Check out this guide for tips: The Pros and Cons of Outsourcing Your Software Development
When You Need a Dedicated Development Team
The dedicated software development team is an approach to staff outsourcing that comes in handy in various situations. Limited budgets are perhaps the most common one, but it’s much more than that.
Situations where dedicated teams are a good way to go:
- Limited IT budget. Cost reduction is still the primary reason for outsourcing for 70% of companies worldwide.
- Lack of in-house IT expertise. Companies hire dedicated developers when they have no in-house teams to build software.
- Large, complex, long-term projects. These scenarios require a strong team of developers who will stay with the project until required.
- Software projects that are likely to grow. This means the projects will require new functionality in the future, for which a dedicated team is a good choice.
- Unclear or incomplete project requirements. If you need help with analyzing the target market’s needs and defining the functionality that meets them, dedicated teams can complete these tasks for you.
Clearly—
The benefits of hiring a dedicated project team have gone beyond cost reduction and become more growth-oriented. But let’s talk about specific business advantages in more detail to give you a bigger picture.
Looking for business ideas to explore? Take a look at these 15 Business Ideas For Men and these 20+ App Ideas for Startups.
Advantages of Using Dedicated Development Teams for Businesses
Businesses working with dedicated development teams are reporting many advantages over in-house teams. Below are the seven main ones.
Cost Efficiency
What can I say—
Using the IT budget more effectively is something that businesses achieve easier with dedicated development teams.
Here’s why:
- Lower employee pay expenses. Hiring a full-time software developer in the U.S. costs $107,510 per year on average, while the services of the same-skilled developer from Eastern Europe can cost around $30,000.
- No need to hire more people than needed. At the very beginning, an outsourcing vendor provides just enough expense required to complete a software project successfully, on time.
- Lower spending on infrastructure and human resources. Your outsourcing vendor takes care of infrastructure, hiring, onboarding, and training of team members to let you focus on developing your idea.
Outsourcing clients enjoy these benefits while getting high-quality work from professional developers.
Needless to say—
A dedicated project team remains one of the most cost-effective work models in software development for businesses.
Simpler Hiring
You might be aware of how hard finding skilled software developers is. If not—then know that the IT labor market is getting tighter because U.S. universities observe major declines in computer science enrollments because of the pandemic.
But—
The talent shortage is another problem that the dedicated team approach helps to solve.
Here’s how. An outsourcing vendor:
- Provides qualified candidates with experience on similar projects
- Interviews these candidates with you to pick the best ones
- Conducts hiring, onboarding, and training of the newly assembled team
The entire process of assembling the entire dedicated team might take as little as 15 days, depending on the client’s availability. To compare, hiring one IT professional in the U.S. takes 44 days on average, with many processes lasting over 60 days.
So, with a dedicated team model, you can hire qualified people much faster and easier. And, of course, you have complete control over the selection process.
Focused Approach
Dedicated.
That means that the team focuses exclusively on your project.
Unlike in-house employees who can get distracted by other important tasks, dedicated teams are hired to complete a specific project, full-time. As a result, you can achieve faster project results and get the product ready for launch.
Lower Workload for The In-House Team
The dedicated model takes the issue of overworking very seriously.
Since dedicated teams focus on your projects, your in-house development team will face a lower overall workload. So, you can use their time to complete other projects.
Lessening the workload of in-house employees will also help to reduce their stress level because you’ll be able to distribute tasks more evenly. As a result, your business will be able to increase job satisfaction, which helps with retaining employees.
Delegation of Time-Consuming Duties
IT infrastructure, payroll, paperwork, employee benefits, office space, employee retention, administration, team building, legal matters, team motivation…
In the dedicated project team model, the outsourcing partner takes care of these duties either fully or partly. Doing so makes total sense because putting all these responsibilities on the client would complicate the work and cause delays.
Faster Product Time-to-Market Time
Release a working product as fast as possible.
That’s the ultimate goal of dedicated teams. The entire work model was built to accelerate processes without sacrificing the quality, so it gives you a good chance to create your digital product fast.
Factors that help to achieve a faster time-to-market time:
- Fast team assembly
- Less budget spending
- Necessary skills and expertise
- Dedication to your project only
- Experience that eliminates many avoidable issues
Now—
We know the advantages of hiring a dedicated development team, let’s move on to the folks who make it possible.
Need to see all examples of outsourcing first?
These should be useful: 10 Common Examples of Outsourcing
Dedicated Software Team Structure
A dedicated software team is structured to have the skills required to complete a specific project (an app, a website, etc.). A typical structure, though, includes a project manager, quality assurance engineers, a DevOps engineer, UX/UI designers, and developers.
Here are the roles they play in software projects.
Project Manager
A project manager is someone who plans, manages, and leads the project until the very end. This person has a duty to see the project succeed and do everything to achieve that in the most efficient and effective manner.
That “everything” includes ensuring that all requirements (project milestones, budget limits, technical specifications, etc.) are met as expected. Throughout the process, the project manager also plays the role of the link between the client and the rest of the team.
Learn more about the role of a project manager: Software Development Project Manager: Role in Dedicated Teams
DevOps engineer
A DevOps engineer is a person who works with software developers and other IT staff members to oversee and facilitate the release of quality code using DevOps efficiency principles.
Without a DevOps engineer, the speed of code release might be much slower. Besides, many team members wouldn’t be able to achieve their productivity because DevOps engineers’ duty is to lessen their workload by using automation.
Ultimate guide on DevOps engineers: What is a DevOps Engineer? Roles, Responsibilities, Importance
UX/UI Designers
UX and UI designers focus on making digital products helpful, accessible, and simple to use. They do so by studying the target users and creating visual prototypes of products to allow for more thorough testing and improvement.
Simply put, these people ensure that your target users can benefit from your digital product without breaking a sweat. So, as a client, you’ll be collaborating with UI/UX designers to create a truly customer-centered product.
More on why businesses need UX/UI designers on dedicated teams: UX/UI Designer: Key Skills, Roles, Responsibilities
Developers
Web developers are the people whose primary responsibility is to write quality code for digital products. Also, they’re involved in defining the needs of target users, testing software, and making improvements based on user feedback.
Software developers can work on the frontend and backend.
Frontend developers create the user-side code, which makes up the graphical interface of the product. So, your dedicated development team will surely have one or multiple frontend developers depending on the product’s complexity.
Backend developers are team members who create the technology needed to power the graphical interface made by frontend folks. This technology includes database, scripts, server work, architecture, and/or other factors.
Read more about software developers: Software Developers: Who They Are And What They Do
QA Testers
QA testers (also called QA engineers) are responsible for ensuring perfectly-functioning software. They do so by performing various kinds of quality checks throughout the project lifecycle, focused on finding bugs, defects, security issues, and other problems.
To perform their work well, QA testers often work together with software developers to facilitate the improvement of any code issues. A DevOps engineer is involved in this process, too, overseeing the collaboration.
More about the role of QA testers: QA Engineers: Roles and Importance [Entrepreneur’s Guide]
How to Manage a Dedicated Development Team
Just like any other dedicated software team member, a client has an important role to play. Throughout the project, they will be fully involved, getting updates, providing feedback, motivating the team, and doing other things.
So, here are your roles and responsibilities when cooperating with a dedicated team needed to make it properly.
1. Choose candidates provided by the vendor
As mentioned, you have complete control over the team member selection process. The vendor will provide candidates with the skills and experience required for your project, and you’ll make your choice based on interviews.
For example, our clients here at IDAP get team member recommendations as soon as project requirements are set. A project manager helps make the final picks by explaining the expertise, technologies, and skills necessary.
2. Set up work processes
No worries, this job is done together with a project manager (this person is your link, remember?). Before the project starts, you spend some time organizing work processes and outlining the overall organization.
Setting up processes is an essential requirement to speed up the team’s work because it helps eliminate such issues as unclear roles and delays. You don’t have to have any project management experience—the most important thing is to be involved.
3. Provide software tools
Communication apps, file sharing tools, and code testing software.
These are some of the tools that the team needs. Providing them is in the client’s best interest, as these tools enable the team to do their job. In many cases, though, many software tools required are free.
Common tools in software development include:
- Slack for communication
- Zoom for video meetings
- JIRA for project management
- LastPass for password security
- Github for software development
- Google Drive for document management
4. Hold daily meetings
Daily meetings keep everyone on the same page, focused, and accountable.
So, yeah, it’s important for you to be an active part of these events. Depending on the project, the meetings can be of various lengths—that can be agreed upon during the plan planning phase.
Here, we’ll include tips for business owners (what to ask developers during meetings, how to keep things organized, etc.). Also, we’ll advise you to never skip meetings.
5. Provide regular feedback
Regular feedback from the client is like music to everyone’s ears.
Clients are involved in constant project progress monitoring and review, so having their feedback helps stay on the right track. This is equally important at all project stages, as clients typically have the best knowledge of target users.
So, make sure to give feedback to the dedicated team quickly and frequently and keep meetings regular. The faster your developers get your feedback, the faster they will complete their tasks and resolve any challenges.
6. Motivate your team constantly
Software developers are famously known for their strong internal motivation and the desire to solve complex challenges. Yet, motivating your team should be an ongoing task because great employee experience equals 21% more profits to the company.
Ideas for motivating your dedicated team:
- Give credit and praise when it’s due
- Celebrate project achievements to boost morale
- Look for ways to make the work environment better with anonymous surveys
7. Go see the team!
Seeing everyone in person is a great thing.
Not only do you get to meet the people who work for you, but also see how the team functions and build a healthy work relationship.
In our experience, clients prefer to come on three occasions:
- In the beginning, to meet everyone and understand how we work
- To celebrate properly when a project hits a major milestone
- At the end of the project to celebrate the product launch
So, go for a face-to-face meeting with your team!
By the way, our office is located in Kyiv, which is only a 1.5-hour flight away from Vienna, 3.5 hours from London, and 10 hours from New York 😉
Our Dedicated Development Team In Action
We have been using a dedicated model for years…
No, this is too general, we can do better—
As our client, you don’t have to worry about things like managing resources, giving tasks, or tracking employee time. You get a personal project manager from the very first day of our collaboration, who will be responsible for the lion’s share of the duties.
Here’s how our engagement model works:
- Client gets a personal project manager who guides them until the project’s end
- Project vision is created to describe the best decisions based on the collected data
- Client and project manager define project requirements and plan the resources
- Team member interviews and selection processes begin
- Product development and testing start
- Product is delivered.
Does this approach work, you ask?
You bet!
Here are some figures to back this up:
- 4.9 rating on Clutch
- 4.8 rating on Featured Customers
- 200+ successfully completed software projects
By the way, you can see some of our successful projects here: IDAP Portfolio.
Hire a Dedicated Development Team
A dedicated development team is a popular model of collaboration between clients and software development service providers. It’s designed to ensure consistent, quality, and long-term management of software projects.
I hope you now have a better idea about what dedicated teams are and why working with them is a good strategy for businesses. In case you want to find a team that gets work done in the most efficient way, drop us a line today.
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