What’s a Dedicated Team in Software Engineering and How to Use It

The dedicated development team model is a popular collaboration model in today’s software development world. This is a working approach that will come in handy in a variety of 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?

Dedicated team engagement is business cooperation when a project is outsourced to a contractor company. The definition of a dedicated team explicitly states that team members dedicate themselves to a single project. Such an approach is ideal for businesses that want fully-fledged, well-resourced, and highly qualified developers to deal with their particular 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.

What Differs a Dedicated Team Model 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 to detail 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.

Check the table below for better comprehension.

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 for building 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 would be on the same page with your in-house department.

Benefits of Dedicated Team Model and Risks to Be Aware of

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 a dedicated team, 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 quickly replace employees if needed. 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 speak about short-term collaboration and 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 make the necessary research and wean you off the unnecessary waste of time and effort in the process of development 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 an 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.

Dedicated team advantages are now clear, but there are also some risks you should be aware about.

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. But 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

This cooperation model mostly becomes profitable after 12 months. For short-term projects with well-defined requirements, choose a different engagement scheme.

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 such a cooperation model, you should know how to find a dedicated team and set cooperation with it.

How to Hire a Dedicated Software Development Team

When hiring dedicated IT specialists, 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 the product features, preferred specialists, team structure and size. In case 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 will you be able to conduct a personal interview with candidates to see their communication style, ability to meet the requirements of your project, as well as 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 2 weeks or once a month.

It will 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 are not 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 stays a very competitive country in this aspect.  A month after the Russian invasion Dou surveyed 6812 IT specialists from Ukraine. More than 80% of them were working full time, even though over 60% had to leave their homes.

Key benefits of outsourcing to Ukraine:

• High motivation, especially in the current situation.
• European time zone.
• Similar work culture.

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.