The dedicated development team model is a popular collaboration model in today’s software development world. It’s a working approach that will come in handy in various situations. It offers significant benefits for businesses in need of IT services.
Let’s first answer the important question.
What is a Dedicated Team Model?
The meaning of the term “dedicated team” refers to the team members that dedicate themselves to a single project. Dedicated team engagement is business cooperation when a project is outsourced to a contractor company. Such an approach is ideal for businesses wanting fully-fledged, well-resourced, and highly qualified developers to deal with their projects.
In fact, a customer gets employees with in-house-like dedication but without the corresponding costs.
How Does a Dedicated Team Work?
First, the vendor learns the project details and then gathers a team tailored to the client’s project from the ground up.
The team is often remote, engaged full-time, and interwoven into a client’s software project. Results are reported directly to the client. Thus, the latter has direct access to the developer team and stays up-to-date with the project’s progress.
Resolutions Provided by Dedicated Development Teams
With dedicated development team members, your business can solve numerous changes. Let’s figure out scenarios when relying on a dedicated team model helps the most:
Inadequate Staffing in Development Teams or Projects
If you lack specialized expertise, bringing in a dedicated development team can be a great solution. The dedicated development team model is characterized by staff flexibility and quick response & turnaround time. Choosing this service type will help your business handle complex tasks or free up in-house workers.
Slow Time-to-Market for Digital Products
Project timelines can be shifted due to various unpredictable factors. Yet, the development team works without delays and responds instantly to any of your requests. The dedicated development team approach helps introduce competitive products to the market as planned.
Fulfilling Absent Software Development Capabilities
Successful software development projects require sufficient resources. At times, finding the talent with a specific set of skills might become a considerable problem. That’s where dedicated teams come to the rescue. Each team member is carefully selected to meet the client’s project requirements, goals, and budget.
Limitations in Project Expansion
At times, when project execution gets stalled by either a lack of talent or any other issue, adding dedicated team members can straighten out all problems. One of the perks of the dedicated team model is that experts can be hired in an instant. Furthermore, dedicated teams can be hired to resolve specific project segments, too.
How Does a Dedicated Team Model Differ from the Other Engagement Schemes?
IT industry boasts variable interaction schemes and collaboration models. You should always choose the one that works best for your particular case. So, let’s compare.
Dedicated Team vs Time & Material Model
The time and material approach is usually used when there is no certainty about the product conformity to the market, the timeframe necessary for project fulfillment, and the product life cycle.
Thus, they divide the project flow into iterations, each having a certain duration. At the end of every iteration, the customer gets some version of his product to decide upon future progress. The downside of this model is that exact budget and timeframes cannot be set in advance. What is more, the team composition may change for various iterations.
Dedicated Team vs Fixed Price Model
A fixed-price model is your best match if you know the details of all the features your software solution should have. So, you define the budget at the very start and pay it for the product delivered.
The payment depends neither on the developers’ working hours nor on the amount of work. You just pay for the result received.
If there are additional costs that are not specified in the contract, the service provider covers them. It makes this cooperation model attractive for small projects with clear-cut requirements. For quick product releases or blockchain projects, for instance, it’s not suitable.
Hidden costs are the main risk of such a cooperation model. Sometimes, you have to pay the contract amount without the proper result.
Which Is Better: A Dedicated or In-House Team?
A dedicated development team outperforms in-house staff in many aspects. One of them is the lack of local talent. By hiring offshore specialists, you can benefit from their unique expertise. At the same time, modern management tools allow full control over the team, as if it is on-site.
Another benefit of the dedicated resources model is that you need 8-12 weeks to build an in-house team. With outsourcing, everything goes faster because vendors have a preliminary shortlist of specialists for certain tasks.
So you can quickly build a team that is on the same page as your in-house department.
Benefits of the Dedicated Team Model
Let’s draw a line: what are the advantages of hiring a dedicated development team? They are below.
Access to Sought-After Experts and Multicultural Cooperation
By hiring dedicated project teams, you get access to a whole variety of specialists from the worldwide talent pool. So, you can hire experts in major verticals in one country (to decrease costs, for instance) and then supplement the team with a narrowly specialized developer from another region. It works well if you lack a professional in some particular field.
What is more, the specialists have all the necessary software and hardware for their specific tasks. Working as a team of many specialists with different backgrounds, cultures, and working styles, they exchange experience and acquire new skills, sharing them with you.
Quick Development/Scaling
Dedicated developers become your extra hands with an option to replace employees if needed quickly. So, you can continuously improve your project by cooperating on a long-term basis. You can also use the engineers with full concentration on one project for its rapid growth and for meeting some timeline requirements. Then, we will speak about short-term collaboration and a fast development cycle.
Absence of the Outlined Requirements
Before the project starts, you should make sure your idea fits the product and the market. Dedicated developers can do the necessary research and wean you off the unnecessary waste of time and effort in the development process and testing. So you can avoid budget overruns.
Unleashing the Full Product Potential
If you cooperate with a dedicated team long-term, you can improve your product continuously. Just ensure the specialists will stick with you to the point you consider your product ideal.
A Jump on Time-To-Market
When you need to enter the market ASAP, a dedicated resource team is the answer. To avoid distracting your in-house staff from work, you can handle an adjacent project to contractors and speed up the overall project flow.
Cost Saving
Outsourcing has the essence of cost saving at its core. You don’t have any added expenses and fees-related headaches concerning the in-house team because your vendor is responsible for that part. He knows how to choose a dedicated development team for your project and introduce it to you.
Engagement and Management Issues
That’s the case when an advantage may turn into a drawback. The abundant choice of foreign resources may require longer observations on your part. However, for the best result, just consider cooperation with a hiring company or a company that provides IT services under a dedicated team model.
Best Efficiency for 1 Year+ Projects
A dedicated team model mostly becomes profitable after 12 months. For short-term projects with well-defined requirements, choose a different engagement scheme.
Adaptability in Planning and Change Management
Managing a project is hard, but managing during turmoil may bring increased stress and challenges. Nowadays, the ability to navigate uncertainty and respond to change is no longer a perk but a necessity. Note that dealing with the transition in a project is one of the strongest points of the dedicated team model.
Enhanced Innovation Speed
A sufficiently competent team of experts can resolve more complex issues and deliver innovative solutions at an accelerated pace. If you strive to stand out from competitors, a dedicated development team can be the best fit for your project.
Disadvantages of the Dedicated Team Model
Dedicated team advantages are now clear, but there are also some risks you should be aware of.
Miscommunication
Different cultures may have different specifics, so take it into account for managing such a team. Also, variable time zones and national holidays should be carefully considered for proper deadlines.
Thus, the dedicated team is not a universal choice, and you should bear it in mind. If you still opt for a dedicated team model, you should know how to find team members and start cooperating with them.
Not Optimal for Short-Term Projects
As noted before, dedicated development teams are more efficient for long-term projects as teamwork requires time. If your project needs less time for development, think about choosing other models.
Demanding Strong Operational Alignment
Any partnership implies involvement and strong internal support. A third party should be engaged in the process and informed about the product vision as fully as possible. Changes in management are possible, though the dedicated team should reach a compromise regarding loss in the team’s velocity or project timeline extension.
Potential Compliance Risks
Another drawback worth mentioning is that integrity risks can arise in a dedicated team model. This particularly refers to industries with stringent regulatory requirements, such as healthcare or finance. Implementing robust governance and compliance practices can be a way out.
How to Hire a Dedicated Software Development Team
When hiring a dedicated development team, you should realize how responsibilities are shared.
As a customer, you are responsible for project scope, detail accuracy, company culture, effective management and communication, and proper measurement of performance.
The vendor takes care of all recruitment and HR-related aspects, working space, IT infrastructure, and much more.
And now, let’s go step by step.
Step 1. Defining Requirements
It’s vital to know what you want from the very start. Set your project goals and budget accurately before contacting your vendor. You should also decide upon a dedicated team structure and size, preferred specialists, and product features. If you have an in-house team, also define the tech stack and the workflow.
Clear requirements for each stage of development and information about your business will help you find the right people for your project.
Step 2. Picking Cooperation Model
At this stage, you should define which team you need. It may be an all-inclusive department for the project or multiple groups to cope with specific tasks. A support and maintenance team can be hired if your solution is ready or close to it.
Step 3. Selecting Talents
When using a dedicated team mode, your hiring process will comprise several rounds. First, your vendor will interview, select, and shortlist the candidates through HR and tech interviews. Only then you’ll be able to conduct a personal interview with candidates to see their communication style, ability to meet the requirements of your project, and corporate culture.
As soon as the team staff is hired, the work can be started.
Step 4. Integrating the Team
At this stage, you integrate the hired specialists with the project workflow. The choice of approach and management tools is on your part. It’s reasonable to get acquainted with each team member and decide upon the regular communication channels for the project process and progress through effective monitoring and control.
Step 5. Setting KPI
However, rather than having to monitor your project around the clock, set vital performance metrics to adequately evaluate the work of your dedicated team. Calculate project KPIs at the beginning and measure them regularly, say every two weeks or once a month.
It’ll help you stay up-to-date and extend or decrease your team upon necessity.
One more vital aspect to mention is the cost of a dedicated development team.
Cost of Hiring a Dedicated Development Team
The key expense item in this cooperation scheme is hourly payment because all other fees and costs aren’t your headache. The wages of IT specialists depend on their location.
The Western European and American developers will charge you something between $55-105 per hour. In Eastern Europe, the same service will cost $30-90, depending on the specialist’s level. Thus, you can hire a professional team from Eastern Europe, which means that you pay 2 or even 3 times less, but in no way sacrifice quality. Let’s see why.
Best Countries for Hiring Dedicated Developers
Remote countries can offer you good specialists, but pay attention to the ratio of competencies and costs. This is important, and Eastern Europe, primarily Ukraine and Poland, is a reasonable choice.
Even today, Ukraine remains a very competitive country in this aspect. IT Ukraine Association reports that 85% of IT companies have effectively executed business continuity plans, guaranteeing consistent service delivery. Moreover, numerous companies have moved their operations to more secure areas within the country or adopted remote working protocols, enabling developers to maintain full-time work schedules.
Key benefits of outsourcing to Ukraine:
- High motivation, especially in the current situation.
- European time zone.
- Similar work culture.
- Cost-effectiveness.
- Abundant IT workforce.
- Focus on data protection and information security.
Discover the latest insights on outsourcing in Ukraine in 2024! Read our recent article to learn how the country’s IT sector is thriving, even amidst challenges.
Why Hire a Dedicated Team at Mangosoft
Hiring a dedicated team helps to handle a project of any complexity.
Mangosoft’s dedicated software development team has an impeccable background for 100% successful project implementation for any industry: e-commerce, fintech, banking, supplies, investments, healthcare, and more.
Partnering with our dedicated development team can be an excellent way to bring your business to the next level. How exactly? See what we offer:
✔️ Highly scalable team
✔️ In-house project control
✔️ Complete access to human resources
✔️ Professional technology expertise
✔️ Transparent hiring process
✔️ Agile project management
Final Thoughts
A dedicated development team is advantageous for fast-growing businesses and startups in the technology sphere, opting for long-term cooperation and qualified staff at reasonable costs.
Overall, the dedicated team model can serve as a powerful tool for driving organizational growth and fostering innovation in today’s dynamic and competitive business environment.
Don’t hesitate to utilize the perks of dedicated teams for your business!
