Dedicated Team Structure

Information technology is one of the most flourishing industries. With the amount of competition and rapid-paced software creation procedures, the information technology industry is introducing new technologies and procedures every day. Software development might seem like an easy task, but it requires a lot of professional knowledge and skills. There are a lot of group tasks associated with developing software and web apps.

Most of the companies work with in-house developers; however, some projects require special techniques. To cope with the requirements of these projects, special skills are often required. There are a few methodologies and procedures involved with remote teams as well. One of these procedures is dedicated team development.

Companies most often use three software development methodologies. Each methodology has its pros and cons. These techniques come with different development models and approaches. The three methodologies that are involved in software development are as follows:

• Fixed-price model: when you pay a fixed price for services of each specialist, involved in a project, usually every month.
• Time-based model: when you pay a certain amount of money per hour of each specialist's involvement in a project.
• Dedicated team model: when you pay a fixed amount of money per month to outsource services to a team.

All of the above-mentioned methodologies are associated with different kinds of projects. The first two methodologies, i.e. the fixed price and the time and material approach are usually handled by the in-house developers or freelancers if required. These techniques are involved with small to medium scale projects that are easy to handle and doesn’t require a lot of changes in the software lifecycle: that could be designing an application, a data migration project, an installation of a CMS, and so on.

These projects aren't broad and usually have a simple finishing line as a goal, as in a ready-to-use design; a logo; etc.

However, the dedicated team model is the development approach that handles large-scale projects. These large-scale projects usually require a lot of changes during the creation and are developed using iterative or agile development methods. These are all kinds of software and mobile development that require constant support and updates from an engineering team (that's like, all of them.)

What is a Dedicated Team Structure?

A dedicated team structure is a structure in which the project is outsourced to remote developers. This remote team of highly skilled professionals is specialized and contains developers, a quality assurance team, and a remote project manager. A dedicated team combines high skills with minimal expense (because of outsourcing) and thus is one of the most effective and cost-oriented approaches.

Usually, dedicated development is good for the clients who have a good understanding of their market, industry, and challenges that development can face.

A dedicated development team contains a dedicated set of people who show commitment and dedication to each project they handle. It reduces a lot of risks and manages the development procedure without bugs and errors produced by the low-level motivation to work on the project. Companies hire teams specifically to fit clients' projects: they are interested in the industry and software development for your specific audience, engaged in your idea from the start (at least, we're doing it that way.)

Many companies prioritize the dedicated team structure to deal with long-term projects. Clients that require this kind of such an approach usually:

• Understand their system and are well aware of their targets and goals
• Understand the risks and challenges involved in the project
• Have the freedom to develop the project on their terms
• Have the flexibility to change or increase the number of people working on their projects
• Have the requirements to change the end-product at any development stage
• Can afford expensive development and hire experienced professional project managers if required.

Pros of Dedicated Team Structure:

A dedicated development team provides a lot of benefits for both outsourcing companies and development companies. The team works with dedication on each project and hence the target achievability increases with this structure. The dedication of the developers often results in a highly effective outcome which not only reduces the time of the project but also saves a lot of cash. Hence, this method of creating software and web apps is time effective as well as cost-effective.

The end result of the projects is highly sophisticated, flexible, and changeable. Mostly, the clients that are dealing with long-term projects appreciate this methodology. Because iterative and agile principles are utilized for developing the systems, the output of the system is changeable at any time.

1. You have direct control over the crew that works on the system. This increases the transparency of the project and improves the crew's understanding of business goals — and your understanding of different tech practices, testing, marketing strategies, and so on.
2. In case you want to save time and have a minimum amount of communication with the team, communication and assignment transitions are handled by managers who are familiar with the team and good at coordinating their process and documenting it. That keeps transparency intact and allows you to dedicate your personal resources to other tasks.
3. A dedicated team model cuts the employee hiring cost. As no employees are hired for in-house development, the project eliminates a major portion of expenses.
4. The employees working on the project can be hired for a specific project and can be released after the project is finished, but they can stay and maintain the product in post-production as well, add new features, and so on.
5. A dedicated structure not only contains developers but converge professional experts to complete a project. The team is mostly composed of developers, quality assurance agents, project managers, and project coordinators, writers, and designers.
6. People who work on a project improve their qualifications over time and will be able to bring new technologies, tools, and strategies to improve it.
7. Any transition difficulties are avoided as long as the core dedicated team works on the project. A dedicated team structure implies advanced knowledge and experience sharing, even with the new players introduced to the team.
8. A company can directly contact the developing group and ensure timely delivery of the product. Delivery deadlines can be handled easily using a diverse workforce.

Cons of Dedicated Team structure:

There are a lot of benefits of dedicated development. It can reduce the cost and time. However, there are certain restrictions as well that comes with this model. Following are some shortcomings of this approach of developing robust software.

1. It might be difficult (at the beginning) to coordinate the cooperation between a dedicated team and your in-house team if you have one. A dedicated team model generally more fitting for projects that have just been started or for the implementation of a new idea/technology/methodology. If you're employing a dedicated team into an existing team with a similar or overlapping set of responsibilities, your in-house team needs to be made aware of the addition, so it won't be an unpleasant surprise. They need to be willing to work and communicate with "external forces," and understand why you've decided to hire them. If communication about this aspect won't be handled with care, the performance will drop in both teams.
2. Effective remote communication is hard if you're new to it. For it to work on the high-level, you need to know exactly what you want — or you need to ask concrete, goal-oriented questions in case if you want to test your idea out. (F.i.: what technologies I need to use to ship the app for X market in Y months on desktop and mobile?)
3. To make a dedicated team structure effective, companies often need highly skilled managers. We at BeKey can provide you with super experienced and hell-bent on making things work and sticking to schedule managers. If you want your people to handle development teams, it works, too, but be aware of a transition period at the beginning of the development where they'll be getting used to each other's styles of work, communication, and productivity.
4. Another factor that limits this approach is the difference in the time-zones of developers. At BeKey, we change our work timing so that the time difference can be reduced as much as possible. Also, Ukraine has only an hour difference with Europe and, on average, seven hours difference with the USA, so it might not be that much of a problem.
5. Short-term projects with a clear, quickly achievable goal that doesn't need testing are sometimes better handled with a fixed-price or hourly-basis product. But if you would want to scale them [and with apps and software, you usually do want this), a dedicated team model is a good fit.

Should you use a dedicated team structure

A dedicated team model is one of the most commonly used approaches for long-term projects. Keeping in mind your project and the core objectives you want to achieve, should you develop this procedure totally depends on you.

Before starting with a dedicated team model, you need to provide a detailed survey of your project: what do you want to achieve, to try, to test; how much money do you have and how long do you think you'll need to work on your idea;

Analyze your project and get in touch with us. BeKey provides excellent dedicated teams for creating great software, mobile applications, designs, marketing strategies, and a whole bunch of other things you might need for your business.