Dedicated Development Team: The Ultimate Guide 2024

Foraying into software development? Then you’re likely grappling with crucial questions: Should you build an in-house team or opt for outsourcing? Is it better to assemble a cohesive team or rely on individual specialists under your project management? The answers are far from definite and hinge on multiple factors.

As we have seen, a dedicated development team stands out as a top collaboration model, and for good reason. Yet, there are also strong cases for considering other strategies.

Our all-encompassing guide, prepared by a battle-hardened Jedi with two decades in the software development industry, will help you determine when a dedicated team is the optimal choice, and when alternative approaches may be more suitable. We delve into the key players you need on board, and provide strategic insights on selecting the perfect team while effectively managing risks.

What is a dedicated team? The efficiency of outsourcing combined with the commitment of the in-house staff

A team of cross-functional experts that put their backs into your project and go above and beyond to bring it across the goal line — that’s a broad-strokes portrait of a dedicated team. Under this engagement model, companies can bring in full or partial teams that work exclusively on their software projects. 

Just like an in-house team, a dedicated developer team remains skin in the game throughout the entire development process, except you don’t have to stress over the hiring, onboarding, and daily management. You can have as much or as little involvement in the development and management process as you want  — anyway, a dedicated software development team is capable of taking over the entire process of digital product development. 

Such a team dynamically adjusts to the pace and scale of software development, allowing you to fine-tune the team size and composition based on your evolving needs. Developers, designers, QA engineers, and any other roles can be hand-picked on demand when and as you need them. 

Beyond in-house: The power of the dedicated team’s support

Today, 90% of Fortune 500 companies go for outsourcing in addition to having an in-house team. The reasons for hiring a dedicated development team are manifold — our experts have listed the most significant ones below.

Rapid scalability

Adapting to fluctuating project demands and scalability requirements in-house is a challenging endeavor due to resource limitations and the time required for recruitment and onboarding. A dedicated team model is flexible in roles and skills, allowing companies to build up their capabilities on demand to accelerate time-to-market and support evolving project needs. 

Cost efficiency

Around 59% of companies outsource to cut costs associated with in-house hiring and development. A dedicated app development team eases the financial burden on companies by relieving them of operational overheads and other costs related to sourcing candidates and employee training. Moreover, you can source tech talent in cost-effective regions such as Central and Eastern Europe to bring down the financial outlay of development.

Stress-free hiring

From long hiring cycles to administrative burden, in-house hiring is not for the faint of heart and is definitely not for the employers in a hurry. Conversely, hiring a dedicated application development team is as easy as proving a job specification and approving the candidates cherry-picked to your requirements.

360-degree visibility into the process, away from the grind

In-house hiring and team management are generally associated with the highest level of visibility. But to build it up, company leaders need to constantly have their fingers on the pulse and mother hen their development team. When it comes to an offshore dedicated development team, a powerful combo of dedicated project managers and project management tools can ensure a high level of visibility into the project progress, minus the supervision fuss. 

Access to a wide talent pool

Talent scarcity keeps 4 in 5 company leaders on their toes, stalling new projects and decreasing the odds of securing a niche or highly-coveted talent. By banking on dedicated development team services, companies enter a global talent pool where they can hire skilled experts at a reasonable price. Better yet, this engagement model helps you develop expertise in adjacent fields or completely different ones, including AI, mobile app development, MVP development, and other projects.

	In-house team	Dedicated team
Hiring the team	~ 2 months	2 – 10 days
Scaling the team	1- 2 months	1 – 5 days
Recruitment and hiring costs	~ $3500 per hire	0
Training costs	~ $1100 per employee	0
Expertise	Might be insufficient	Exactly matches the project’s needs
Level of control	High	High

What does a dedicated project team structure look like?

The structure of a software development team is determined by a combination of factors. These include the type and complexity of your software product, your timeline, and the allocated budget. Let’s expand on the bare-bones development team structure:

Project manager

A project manager is the point person behind your project responsible for its day-to-day management. Typically, a software vendor assigns a dedicated project manager to lead the entire team, oversee project cost and resource allocation, define project goals, and keep you updated on the project’s progress. 

Business analyst

Business analysts are guardians of business goals and values that bridge the chasm between the business and technical teams. They are instrumental in planning development activities, validating requirements to ensure alignment with business goals, and standardizing processes to maintain a cohesive workflow, facilitating continual improvement based on stakeholder feedback.

Software architect

Equipped with broad technical knowledge, software architects are the great minds behind your software solution architecture and critical technical decisions. They have a final say in the selection of the technology stack, making sure your solution is functional, performant, resilient, and scalable. 

Software developers

A dedicated backend development team is in charge of building and maintaining the inner mechanisms of your software, including data storage, security, and other server-side functions. Frontend developers focus on building user-facing components of web and mobile applications, making your software easy and engaging to interact with.

DevOps engineers

DevOps engineers are at the wheel of development, testing, and release automation activities. Geared up with special tools and DevOps practices, they enable continuous integration and deployment and ensure smooth collaboration between development and ops teams to speed up development cycles and improve software quality.

QA specialists

Quality assurance engineers inspect every aspect of your software, from code to design, to make sure it meets predefined quality standards and is bug-free. Their turf also spans compliance reviews and security testing to eliminate any potential vulnerabilities in your software solutions.

Depending on your project scope, you may need a different combination of team roles to accommodate your project dynamics.

Project scope	Team size	Team roles
Discovery	Up to 5 specialists	Business analyst, project manager, software architect, UX designer
MVP development	6+ specialists	Project manager, business analyst, UX designer, front-end developer, back-end developer, QA engineers
Custom software development	Around 9 specialists	Project manager, business analyst, UX designer, software architect, front-end developer, back-end developer, QA engineers, DevOps engineer

When a dedicated development team model is the right call

Often, it might be not just one, but a whole set of factors that tip the scales in favor of a dedicated team engagement option.

Specialized skill sets across multiple technologies and business domains

Complex projects that implement a variety of technologies, including cutting-edge ones, are a great mesh for an offshore dedicated team. Most companies lack the internal expertise to proceed with the implementation of such projects, while a software development dedicated team has the varied tech knowledge, skills, and hands-on experience to muster it on their own.

High cost of failure

Another scenario fit for a dedicated software team is when your project comes with functional or reputational risks — in other words when you bet big on the software quality. Thanks to their experience, dedicated software development teams know how to build a high-quality solution and they usually go by a mature software quality management framework to do so.

Last-chance-to-get-it-right

When your in-house team is underperforming or your previous vendor has failed to deliver on the promise, dedicated software development experts can pick up the slack in the nick of time. At *instinctools, we’ve seen this scenario many times, providing a team of experts to rescue projects like fintech MVP development and others.

Borrowed expertise

The dedicated team approach also comes in handy when you need to pick the brains of lead software engineers every now and then to identify improvement areas, determine the right development approach, or get actionable advice on the tech architecture. Dedicated experts can provide tech consulting when needed, headache-free. 

Turnkey product development

You can hire a dedicated development team to deliver and launch your custom software product faster and more efficiently. The team focuses solely on your product, selecting the right approach, frameworks, and tools to ensure consistent progress. More importantly, a dedicated remote team is cross-functional, allowing for a one-stop-shop development experience. 

Time to market is critical

If you’re at crunch time for a prototype, an MVP, or a full-fledged product, dedicated teams can offer a shortcut to a successful delivery. Opting for a standby team offers you the double wins of streamlined coordination and specialized expertise, promoting a swift and efficient software development process with no quality trade-offs. So, when time is of the essence, a dedicated team ensures you’re not just fast, but also first-rate.

Complex software development

When it comes to long term projects with an evolving and highly complicated scope, say you’re building an entire ecommerce ecosystem like one of our clients did, a dedicated team runs circles around other engagement models. If you have both a mobile app and a web solution in your backlog, a dedicated team can move from one project to another, being able to deliver results faster thanks to staying in the loop. 

Vague, unclear, ever-changing requirements

Last but not least, you can hire dedicated development teams when you don’t have a good grasp of your software product. A dedicated team can work in lockstep with your changing requirements, developing in small increments to incorporate regular feedback. We’re not advocating for working in the dark though: when your vision is blurred, run a discovery session with your team to solidify your project requirements and map out the roadmap to a successful delivery.

Dedicated team is not a cure-all

The dedicated team model brings a wealth of benefits to your table, but only if it marries well with the nature of your project — and this isn’t always the case. For example, if you’re looking to fill specific skill gaps rather than farm out an entire project, then outsourcing software development to a dedicated team is not the right path for you to follow. In this case, staff augmentation will do the trick. 

Staff augmentation does justice to intermittent or short term projects, where you need an extra pair of hands to temporarily augment the capacity of your in-house team, develop a different component of the product, or bridge in-house skill gaps. 

The main difference between hiring a dedicated development team and bringing in augmented experts lies in the level of the vendor’s responsibility, including risk management, process setups, and knowledge transfer.

Vendor’s responsibility	Staff augmentation	Dedicated team
Providing engineering capacity
Onboarding and knowledge transfer
Project documentation
Software development process setup and maintenance
Project, team and risk  management

Keep in mind that neither model can suffice decade-long, strategic initiatives that have very specific requirements in terms of security, tech stack, personnel training, and other essentials. If that’s the case, your company will be better off with an offshore development center — an overseas extension of your company set up and equipped to meet whatever floats your boat. 

How to choose a dedicated team of developers? Six core steps towards collaboration success

You might think that the quality of products and services comes first when choosing a software development company. This hallmark certainly carries the day, but other traits such as transparency, trustworthiness, and understanding of your business context also count for a lot when it comes to remote teams. Let us facilitate matters for you by providing an algorithm that will help you choose the right company and set up your collaboration for success.

Document the use case

Without a use case, an idea just remains an idea, making it hard for you to describe how a software system can be used to achieve your business goals. So taking the time to document use cases before contacting vendors should be your opening move. You don’t have to get into much detail when describing the use case: try to distill it as best as you can, specifying the general requirements for what’s being built.

A dedicated team can fill in the blanks, but provide as much as possible to communicate the need better and allow for a “solution”, not just a body. 

Decide on a location where to hire a dedicated development team

Back in the day, the location used to be a deal-breaker in choosing a dedicated development team, but the rise of remote work has made it less critical. Nevertheless, some outsourcing locations are easier on your budget and have more time zone overlap with your company’s home country.

You should also take into account other considerations, such as cultural fit, regulatory and legal environment, talent pools, and the skills of local developers. As a popular outsourcing destination, Poland checks all the boxes in terms of service quality, time zone compatibility, and cultural fit. It’s also ranked third among the countries with the best programmers in the world.

Make a list of potential vendors

Once you’ve decided on the location, go on a hunt for local software vendors to online directories, review sites, and search engines. You can also ask around for recommendations or visit industry conferences to evaluate potential tech partners. Following your search results, compile a list of potential vendors that have made it through the basic screening. 

Pay attention to work methodology

You can reach out to the shortlisted vendors to get more details about how they handle project development, including their methodologies, communication, and project management infrastructure. Keep in mind that a trusted software vendor should be ready to adjust to your requirements and exercise a collaborative approach where they provide regular progress updates for your team.

Examine expertise and experience

Make sure your dedicated team can deliver on their promise by checking their previous projects and researching client testimonials. You can ask about their experience with the specific technologies and assess their skills in action during technical interviews. Besides technical proficiency, a top-grade vendor should understand your business context and have hands-on domain experience.

Check market reputation

Finally, you should gauge the market perception and image of your software vendor by analyzing their social media presence, noting the insights from past customers, and looking into their rating on industry-specific platforms like Clutch and Goodfirms. A trustworthy outsourcing company should come highly recommended and have a good name in the market.

Common fears of hiring dedicated teams, allayed

Before you jump into the unexplored terrain, it’s natural to have your doubts about it. Let’s look into the common fears associated with dedicated teams and how you can overcome them. 

Cultural gaps

Different countries have varying communication styles, work expectations, and business practices, which can throw a wrench into project quality, communication, delivery timelines, and even the final development cost. 

To mitigate this risk, single out countries that have a strong cultural overlap with your company’s base location. For example, if your company is located in the US, UK, or EU, a country like Poland can offer the combined benefits of skilled talent pools and a similar cultural background to your company’s host country.

No visibility

The ‘throw-over-the-wall’ approach to outsourcing can leave you in the unknown about the development process, progress updates, and potential stumbling blocks. A dedicated development team that works within a clearly defined and calibrated delivery framework, paired with regular communication, can get this roadblock out of your way.

Communication hurdles

The lack of consistent communication can get both sides misaligned on the project goals, deliverables, and milestones. To alleviate this risk, a dedicated team should adapt to your communication framework, including your communication channels and meeting cadence. 

Also, your software vendor should have a mature governance and escalation infrastructure in place to proactively handle escalation triggers and keep all the aspects of project delivery in check.

Mismatch in expectations

There’s a raft of factors, including miscommunication, inadequate project management, and lack of documentation, that can result in the disconnect between your vision and your dedicated team’s perception of your idea. Unclear requirements, more than anything else, can bring on this disconnect, leading to scope creep and wasted budget.

A comprehensive discovery stage paired with thorough requirement-gathering sessions can bring more clarity to your project vision and project’s requirements, ensuring that each stakeholder is looking in the same direction. And if anything goes awry, Agile methodologies and regular feedback can help your team swiftly adapt to your feedback and right the ship.

Hiring a dedicated development team at *instinctools in 3 simple steps

Building your dream software requires a lean, dynamic team by your side. At *instinctools, we offer a simple, transparent hiring process to help you land your dream team in mere days and jump-start your project.

• Step 1: Discuss your request with a potential vendor 

Our collaboration kicks off with carefully studying your project request and seeing how our expertise can benefit your company. 

If your project vision is limited to a high-level description, our team helps you scope the project by conducting a discovery session. We run discovery workshops with key stakeholders to define the project essentials, including the objectives, deliverables, core technologies, and resources needed. Following the scope, our experts provide accurate time and budget estimations. 

• Step 2: Get a proposal 

Building on a detailed project understanding, we pre-select a team and provide a shortlist of best-fit candidates. You can be as involved in the pre-selection as you want, we always encourage our clients to participate in CV selection and technical interviews to double-check the specialists’ skills. Once our final candidates get your approval, we prepare a Statement of Work that defines the scope of work being provided, project deliverables, timelines, work location, and payment terms and conditions.

• Step 3: Sign a contract and start a cooperation

Before the project launch date, our company finalizes legal agreements and prepares all the final papers. We brief your dedicated team on your project background and help you effectively onboard the specialists. 

Seal the deal on successful projects

Gliding through projects is easier when you have the right development team as your tech wingman. Dedicated teams offer a cost-effective, flexible, and reliable solution for companies seeking tech professionals dedicated to their project’s success. Although this engagement model has a few inherent complexities, you can offset them by teaming up with a mature software vendor well-versed in managing an outsourced team.

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