When Is a Dedicated Development Team the Best Solution for My Project?

In 2019, the global outsourcing market amounted to 92.5 billion. The reasons behind this growing trend seem to be clear: companies turn to IT outsourcing as it can deliver competitive advantage by transforming the way organizations operate and making them more efficient, effective, and agile.

"Organizations are recognizing that disruptive solutions can revolutionize the way they do business, and that “buying” capabilities in the marketplace are generally faster and more scalable than developing capabilities internally. (...) effort and expertise are needed to address security and cyber risks, changing regulations, organizational resistance, skill gaps, and to help flatten fragmented processes. (The Deloitte Global Outsourcing Survey 2018)"

There are three main approaches in which your project development may be tackled: Software Outsourcing, Staff Augmentation, and Dedicated development Team (Team Leasing). In this blog article, we will take a closer look at Team Leasing, so you can find out if it’s the right solution for your project’s needs.

What is a Dedicated Team model?

There is no “one and only” model that fits best – the solution should always be matched to the scale and requirements of the project. For sure, all outsourcing models allow companies to benefit from the IT talent without going through lengthy and often costly recruitment processes. They also extend collaboration with professionals with the right experience and expertise not available within the client’s company.

A Dedicated Team model is a software delivery model that provides you with access to a dedicated development team. The project requirements determine which IT professionals will get involved in your project and how many members will be in the custom-built team. The word “custom” is a key to understanding this service.

You cooperate with a dedicated team that is not just a group of IT experts working on low-level tasks. It is a group of employees that resembles a well-oiled machine – they are working smoothly together on a pipeline of your project. The team’s organizational structure is highly customized to achieve the finest results. It means each time you build a new app, software, and so on, you collaborate with a dedicated team that represents different skills and abilities.

Responsibility in Dedicated Development Team model

A Dedicated Team works independently of your in-house team, but it is 100% allocated to you and dedicated to your project. It is a pretty unique solution because you and the outsourcing partner share the responsibility for project direction and outcomes in this model. However, before a dedicated development team starts working on a project, both sides should agree upon timelines, responsibilities, scope, service-level agreements, and deliverables.

The provider's responsibility is to build the team structure, manage requirements, take care of task management and process quality. The service provider must also control project status and work out the proper communication process to ensure that everyone follows the schedule. Moreover, on the provider's side lies making suggestions on improvements and reporting work progress to the client.

However, the client is the one who makes the project/product management decisions, controls the product roadmap, and takes an active part in the development process. Your in-house Project Owner needs to meet regularly with the outsourced Project Manager who represents the provider to make sure the project aligns with the organization's larger goals and that any new adjustments are not required.

Choosing a Dedicated Development Team service

Team Leasing service works best when:

• you have an IT project with multiple tasks,
• your company needs to build an MVP or a demo in a short period of time,
• your in-house development team must be freed up to pursue other goals,
• the scope of the project is too extensive.

In such cases, a company usually needs a group of employees with various skills – IT professionals who are effective enough to deliver results fast and follow an urgent timeline.

An alternative to this service is the project outsourcing service, i.e., delegating work on the entire project to an external company. The main difference between a Dedicated Team and Project Outsourcing is that in the project outsourcing case the outsourced team has full control over the project development process and is responsible for making all the decisions. So you can’t interfere with it and just wait for the final product to be delivered. If you are looking for flexibility and want to impact the outcomes, you’d rather choose the other option.

The first step before reaching out to any IT Staffing company is to gather all the project requirements. – a document where you describe general information about your company, what product you are planning to build, the tech stack, and the most critical features (technical documentation). It will help your vendor decide how many team members your project requires and what skills are necessary to accomplish it. There are also other aspects worth considering:

• What should communication look like?
• What flexibility does your project require?
• What level of control do you want to keep?
• How outsourcing the project can support your business development?
• Do privacy rules in your company allow for cooperation with an external team?
• Is the team able to use frameworks and tools chosen by your company?
• Are you open to any changes and suggestions that weren’t mentioned in the project description?

In general, the more information you will share with your technology partner the better the team will be suited for your project.

Advantages of Dedicated Team model

As mentioned earlier, a Dedicated development Team is just one of the available IT outsourcing services. However, it definitely has many advantages. Below, we list the five most important benefits of choosing Team Leasing.

1. A dedicated development team acts as a part of your company. In Team Leasing, you cooperate with a remote development team - who works full time for your project – directly, and it behaves like an extension of your company. You are regularly informed about the work progress and have an overview of the responsibilities of each team member. You also have a constant impact on your project development – it positively affects mutual communication and cooperation. As a result, software developers and IT experts are more proactive because they feel accountable for the success of your project.

2. Lower cost compared to recruiting new in-house employees. At Blue House, what you pay is based on hourly reports of a team that works in accordance with the agreed hourly commitment, and the fee is charged monthly. You pay for the work that has already been done – the results. While hiring a new in-house employee, you invest money into sourcing, screening, interviewing, testing, onboarding, and actual salary. After all, you still have no guarantee that the hired person will deliver the expected outcomes. “66% of companies make a bad hiring decision each year. (Global HR Research)."

3. Possibility of scaling team in response to demand. While cooperating in the Dedicated Team model, you get a customized team that meets the project's requirements and goals. The team's capacity is set on the workload needed to finish the project until the agreed period. However, if your company's priorities change over the weeks or months, you may ask the provider to add more employees or reduce the number of team members. It happens that it is necessary to speed up work to meet market demand or slow down in case of a lower company's budget.

4. No micromanagement from the client-side. As a client, you take an active part in a decision-making process, but you delegate a vast scope of responsibilities to the outsourced Project Manager and service provider. There is no need to worry about staff selection, training, supervision, or quality control. Moreover, when there is a long roadmap to develop, requirements can frequently change, and working with a dedicated team means that the work will be continued even then. You leave implementation details to chosen specialists and wait for the results.

5. Delivering results and high quality is ensured. If you decide on cooperation with a seasoned development outsourcing company like Blue House – there is no risk of project development failure. We can advise you on setting a timeline with a to-do list and milestones, the needed size of a dedicated team, or technology. We will choose the right team members for you out of our pre-screened community with senior IT experts. There is no doubt they know how to approach a specific aspect of your project development. Moreover, they often propose project improvements that result from their knowledge and experience.

Summing up

No company has every single tool it needs for each project it faces – a Dedicated Development Team can be perceived as its extension. Businesses, that want to accomplish more in a shorter time, need to take into account strengthening themselves through additional resources. A Dedicated Team can help you accelerate the entire process of project development, shorten the time to market your product and keep the budget together.

If you need more information on Team Leasing or if any aspect is not completely clear to you – reach out to us. Our extensive experience that comes from working with companies from different industries allows us to take a holistic view of the needs of your project.

You may also want to read:

• How Blue House Became One of Top IT Services Company in Poland?
• 5 Tips for Reducing the Duration of the IT Project
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