If you are a football fan, then you have probably played fantasy football or at least know someone that has. Waiting to see how your chosen players perform adds to the excitement of watching the games, but that anticipation can quickly turn to heartburn if your players don’t perform well. The same goes for building an app development team—it’s a gut-punch if the people you picked aren’t getting the job done.
One of the keys to good software project management is assigning the right people to the right tasks. In a utopia, this is easy because you have the best talent in-house and at your disposal. Back in the real world, that’s never the case. If you are lucky, you may have some of the talent you need on staff. In that case, you can take advantage of staff augmentation to quickly complete your team with the specialized extra talent needed. However, if you are tackling a job where your in-house expertise is minimal, your best bet is to outsource the entire project and avoid the pitfalls that can come from trying to assemble an app development team yourself.
Why It’s Difficult to Assemble an App Development Team
If your objectives are to a) have a highly capable team that works well together to solve problems quickly; and b) deliver a great product to your client on schedule, then assembling an in-house team can be a big challenge. Let’s take a look at some of the reasons why.
App Development Team Selection Pitfalls
👎 Lack of tool or language skills
One issue that will prevent you from getting off the ground is not having software engineers who have experience with the tools and/or language required for the project. For some long-term custom development projects, acquisition and learning curves may be tolerated; however, that time could be better spent solving the inevitable problems that will arise throughout the project.
👎 Need to use employees in unfamiliar roles
Although you may have enough personnel available, they may not have the requisite range of skills needed, which means that some would have to fill unfamiliar roles.
👎 Need to create ad-hoc teams
Closely related to placing staff in roles that do not align with their expertise is having to pull people from different teams together into an ad-hoc unit. This type of arrangement can be fraught with trust and communication drawbacks that can undercut efficiency.
👎 Lack of staff bandwidth for the project
Another snafu that can occur is having a team available that is previously scheduled to start another project before they could finish the one that needs staffing. If asking for extensions is something you enjoy doing or think your clients would relish perhaps this can be worked out internally. However, satisfying both clients could be accomplished by outsourcing.
👎 Groupthink
An often overlooked phenomenon that can paralyze a team—especially if they are under similar stresses and work in the same environment is groupthink—where all members approach problems similarly resulting in a single mode of thinking that stymies creativity.
The listing above is not exhaustive. Yet we can see there are a number of issues that can derail your efforts to assemble an in-house app development team. Fortunately, there is an alternative that can relieve you from the burden.
What about Outsourcing an App Development Team?
If creating an app development team internally is not the best option, then what is? How about staffing up, or hiring just the new personnel the project requires? Yes, this is an option and in some cases may be the best option. For example, if the project signals company growth and the new talent will be needed going forward. If this is uncertain, you may want to explore how outsourcing improves software delivery, including the advantages of forming your app development team shown below.
Advantages of Outsourcing App Development Team
👍 Best talent based on project needs
Outsourcing teams are project-specific, which means that your team will possess the necessary tools and coding language skills.
👍 Specialized and experienced team members
Not only will team members have the required skill set, but they also will assume familiar roles and responsibilities.
👍 Increased agility
The best software development is agile, where communication between members (and company staff when necessary) is transparent and virtually instantaneous. The best outsourcing companies can provide this level of development.
👍 No scheduling conflicts
Outsourcing teams are assembled for specific projects. You can be assured that the team is dedicated and will remain intact until the project is completed.
👍 Day-to-day management
In addition to engineers that perform daily project tasks, your outsourcing team can also include project management, freeing you to focus on other projects or company business.
As the list above illustrates, outsourcing can save your project—provided you select the right team for your project and enterprise. Outsourcing a dedicated team with BairesDev can not only speed up the hiring, vetting, and integration process but also assure a quality product from initial conception to final delivery.
At BairesDev we only hire the Top 1% IT Talent in Latin America. Our teams are constructed for specialization based on project requirements, and our workflow process is optimized for maximum agility to ensure that your software product is created efficiently and to the highest quality. To learn more, contact our team.
