You may be looking to create a software development services team from the ground up for your business, or maybe from existing suitably skilled staff members augmented through recruiting others with the necessary skills.
Putting a development team together that can collaborate and work efficiently to create software that will improve and advance your business takes effort, time, and careful thought.
You may decide building a team is either too much work or maybe not worthwhile for a one-off project: if so, outsourcing to a professional software development services company may be worth considering.
If not, here are some pointers to creating your own team:
Project type and size
In general, the smaller team you have the better. Too big a team can cause communication issues as more people have to be ‘in’ on what’s happening, and morale can potentially suffer as some may seem a bit isolated as they might not be seeing the big picture of the project, just the smaller part of it they’re responsible for.
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos says – somewhat tongue in cheek perhaps – the team should be small enough to be “fed by two pizzas only”.
Harmony
Your team may be working for some time together – even a one-off project may last several months – so it’s important that there is a good chemistry between everyone.
Whilst you need some leaders in your team, you don’t want one or two to dominate proceedings completely. A collaborative environment with everyone applying critical thinking based on mutual respect is ideal.
Patience in recruiting and remote options
If you need to recruit externally for either putting together a team from scratch or adding expertise to your in-house personnel, then allowing plenty of time and working methodically to find the right talent is important.
In an area such as IT where certain skills are often in short supply, it’s tempting to recruit in haste, but ensuring candidates not only have the exact skills you need but will fit your company culture is a step not to be rushed over.
It could be worth considering remote workers: whilst they may not attend meetings and briefings physically, it does extend your scope in terms of recruitment.
Team structure
The actual designated roles in software development services set up should be established initially:
• Product owner – it maybe you as the person the software is being developed for: if not, someone taking the role of ‘the owner’ as if they’re going to be the client.
• Project manager – leading the project to ensure objectives are met and timetables adhered to.
• Software architect – the expert making the decisions as to the technicalities of building the software.
• Developers and engineers – they determine what programming language is used: the front-end developer will ensure the interface is convenient to use while the back-end developer looks after ‘behind the scenes’ functionality.
• Testers – ensure the software will perform and is ready for final launch.
But don’t forget: you can outsource the whole to experienced software development services providers or use external skill sets to flex and enhance your team.