The global shortage of IT talent is getting increasingly worse, projected to reach a catastrophic 85.2 million engineers in 2030. Companies worldwide risk losing over $8.4 trillion in revenue due to this. These statistics might worry you, and you would not be alone: this issue concerns 62% of entrepreneurs globally.

If you consider growing your business, think and act before somebody snatches the pie from under your nose. The best way to quickly expand your enterprise is to hire a dedicated development team. This article will briefly outline the benefits and purpose of dedicated teams and give tips on assembling one.

What is a Dedicated Development Team?

A dedicated software development team is a business model. This form of collaboration works as a scaling solution for startups and big companies and is an excellent option for searching for specific technology experts. It is a long-term cooperation between your company and the development team, who works exclusively for you.

This is basically like having an in-house team, especially because they work full-time and report directly to you. However, the difference is they are working remotely, and you do not need to spend a lot of resources recruiting them.

How to Assemble Your Dream Team

Now that you know about the benefits of hiring dedicated development teams, you need to understand the critical points of the process.

Have a clear vision of your product

First, you need to start with your vision of the project. At this point, try to realize what your product will do and what you want to achieve with it. This is vital for any project, but doubly so for hiring dedicated teams, as they are an external entity that has no prior knowledge of your project and does not have the luxury of onboarding. Therefore, you have to give them as much information as you can.

Here are some points to consider:

  • Business requirements (e.g., increasing revenue or raising brand awareness).
  • User requirements (i.e., the user’s problem you solve).
  • Functional requirements (all the functions you want to have).
  • Non-functional requirements (e.g., app’s opening speed).
  • The scope (the amount of work required to complete the project).

Knowing these aspects will help you in the next step of your hiring journey.

Find a reputable vendor

After establishing your requirements and scope, it is time to find a reputable vendor. Keep in mind, you are not looking for a team at this point, only a vendor to help you assemble the team.

First, the location of the team. You can opt for onshore, nearshore, or offshore.

Naturally, it is easiest to work with onshore and nearshore teams, as they work in the same time zone, are familiar with the work ethics, etc. However, outsourcing your project to a team in a developed country can cost you a pretty penny. On the other hand, while communication can be a bit of a barrier, the prices of dedicated offshore teams compensate for that.

Many entrepreneurs think that price = quality. However, that is far from the truth. Many teams in Eastern Europe and Asia offer services that are on par or better than their Western European and American counterparts. Avoid prejudice when looking for a contractor and, instead, look at their expertise. We recommend checking out their project history, case studies, testimonials, and reviews.

Finally, check out their pricing model because that will severely impact your budget—for better or worse.

If you are still determining whether the team will cope with the task, ask them directly or set up an initial meeting.

Assemble your team

Now you have a vendor. Next up, recruiting.

Your vendor will assist you by scouting recruits or sourcing them from their internal talent pool. Your job is to be as involved as possible in the process: review the CVs, be present at interviews, and provide feedback to recruiters. They do not know your project as well as you do, so every bit of your help is vital.

A typical team will include a UI/UX designer, iOS/Android/other developers, QA engineers, a project manager, and a marketing manager. However, you can adapt it to your needs: you might have an in-house marketing manager, so there is no need to hire more. On the other hand, you might need a niche specialist, like a fintech expert to help you manage your app’s compliance. Whatever your needs are, this is the stage where you can fulfill them.

Define work methodology

Your team is there and ready to work. However, you have to solve one issue: how exactly they will work.

The most popular methodology for software development is Agile. Most teams will have no problem working with this methodology as they are, most likely, familiar with Agile’s sprints. However, other methods have their place and if you are confident you need a different approach, discuss this with your vendor beforehand.

Setup communications

Your team should be ready to go, and there are only a few things to consider.

First, you should decide on your preferred modes and methods of communication. We suggest you appoint a person from your company to coordinate the efforts of your new team. Having a single person as a point of contact is much more convenient than having everyone pile on.

You have to decide how often you receive updates and what they will look like. You can do daily stand-ups, quarterly meetings, or presentations every sprint—or a combination of those and more.

Furthermore, you should also choose the software you will use for communication, issue tracking, and version control. These include Trello, Jira, Confluence, Slack, Git, G Suite, and many others. Whatever your choice is, you should communicate this to your vendor. It is easier for the vendor’s team to adjust than for you to adapt your whole business.

Establish quality assurance

Finally, you have to consider what the quality assurance process will look like—two things to keep in mind: who conducts the QA process and what methods they will use.

We recommend conducting functional and non-functional testing. It is relatively easy to automate functional testing and can be performed by your dedicated team. However, non-functional testing, which includes more subjective metrics like usability, reliability, and security, is much more challenging to automate. We advise having as many people as possible conduct these tests on both sides.

We also recommend assigning a person responsible for coordinating QA testing in your company. They will ensure the testing goes smoothly and report to you if anything requires your attention.

Conclusion

In this article, we have briefly discussed how to outsource dedicated software development teams and outlined the benefits of doing so. As you can see, a dedicated team is best suited for mid-to-large-scale long-term projects. For shorter-term or smaller-scale projects, we recommend hiring a remote software development team.

If you need help developing your project, contact CyberCraft. We offer dedicated software development team services and have a lot of experience.