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SCALING YOUR SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT TEAM QUICKLY

Software development teams are typically at the core of most tech companies. Given how integral these teams are to the quality of products and services, one can see how. These teams are also responsible for the kind of innovation and development that makes a company successful.

The challenge, however, is that as a company expands, the original software development team would be inadequate to service its needs. At this point, there is a need to scale such software development teams quickly and effectively. This task, however, is not as simple as hiring additional staff and integrating them. The scaling of technical teams is a tricky process that could very much define a company's future.

Thus, this article will consider why it is crucial to scale your software development team. Furthermore, we will provide some of the best ways to go about this task.

Why It Is Important To Scale Your Software Development Team

At a particular stage of your business, there would be a need to scale your software development team to match growth. However, there are several other reasons for you to consider scaling your software team:

  • Expanded Capacity

    At some point in your business, marketing may lead to increased demand. Such demand may be difficult to meet with your current team. Whether you provide products or services, an undersized software development team could easily get overwhelmed, affecting your business. Such teams might start missing product release deadlines or become too limited to service your expanded customer base. As such, scaling your software development is essential to expand business capacity and maintain growth.

  • Efficiency

    Scaling your software development team could also bring real efficiency benefits. For one, your teams become more capable of handling projects, leading to a faster turnaround time. With such a speedier pace of project completion, your business would be able to take on even more projects and increase revenue. Furthermore, scaling your team by collaborating with external providers could reduce operational costs. For instance, working with a provider like YouDigital could reduce your software development cost by 30% - 50%. These cost savings would definitely improve the margins of your business.

  • Access to Valuable Experience

    Your original software development team might have been sufficient for an early startup. However, this would not continue to be the case. At a particular growth stage, your business would require access to more experience, which your in-house team might be unable to provide. However, by scaling, you can onboard diverse talents, bringing in an array of diverse and valuable experience to help your business remain competitive and meet your strategic goals.

How To Quickly Scale Your Software Development Team

The pace of your business' growth could require that you expand your software development team speedily. The problem, however, is that incorrectly scaling your team could lead to certain unintended consequences. Such consequences include an unbalanced team workload, communication barriers, and inefficiency.

To avoid such missteps while still meeting your required pace, here are some solutions you can adopt:

  • Make Your Code Scale-Friendly

    Many times, the process of scaling would involve hiring new employees. However, onboarding these employees could take time if your code is not prepared. A new employee could take weeks to get a handle on someone else's code. This could make your expanded software development team unproductive. Thus, to avoid this problem, you should adopt a simple and clear code style that is consistent across the team. This way, with adequate guidance, new developers can quickly grasp the concept and get to be productive. To achieve this, you will need to manage your codebase properly. One way to do this is to collaborate with IT partners like YouDigital that have expertise in DevOps and can help manage your codebase.

  • Optimize Communication Channels

    Communication bottlenecks could make your scaling process a nightmare. This is particularly true when you have distributed teams off-site. For example, you might have remote employees in different countries and time zones. This often leads to communication hitches that might hinder your team's output. Thus, it might be necessary to rethink your communication strategy by incorporating the infrastructure and technology needed to facilitate seamless teamwork. This could take the form of video conferencing tools, digital analogs, as well as digital alerts for emergencies in other time zones.

  • Outsource

    Depending on your business, you might require scaling in both directions. That is, you might need to quickly scale down just as much as you might need to scale up. One great way of executing this is bb outsourcing. Outsourcing removes the need to hire or let people go as you initiate and complete projects. To outsource effectively, you can look to IT partners like YouDigital that already have existing teams ready to take on your projects. YouDigital, for instance, their developers already work together, which makes it easier to cooperate on projects and reduce the burden on your in-house team. YouDigital also provides project rescue services that allow you to quickly onboard skilled experts on unfinished software projects that require skill-sets you lack in-house.

  • Automate Team Processes

    As you scale your team, manual activities could result in many bottlenecks. Thus, it is essential to automate your team processes as much as possible. You can adopt the infrastructure as code (IaC) approach with DevOps. This would allow your developers to automatically manage, monitor and provision resources as opposed to manual configuration. Similarly, you can integrate infrastructure automation tools with CI/CD tools. In particular, it is necessary to put automated testing in place. With tools like this, you eliminate redundant activities in your team and enable your developers to direct their efforts to high-impact works.

  • Project Management

    During team scaling, project management is a potential use. As tasks increase, it might be difficult to effectively monitor the execution of projects across in-house and off-site teams. To avoid project management hitches, it might scale your team with a focus on product features. This would allow for team specialization and faster development. It is also best to have a product management plan instead of adopting a figure-it-out-as-you-go approach. Furthermore, when outsourcing, ensure that you go for partners like YouDigital with dedicated product managers that allow you to take a more passive role.

Conclusion

Whether your company is a startup or you are simply expanding, there is no doubt that, at some point, you would have no option but to scale your software development team. It is, however, easy for the process of scaling to go wrong. As such, it is crucial that you develop a well-designed plan and implementation strategy. Similarly, you might find that collaborating with service providers like YouDigital improves your team scaling.

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