Scaling is one of the key stages in the development of any company. Most companies manage to start a business with it, organize the work of a small group of people, and even achieve better results than when they started. Once it comes to expanding the business, however, many things can start going wrong. Reintech is able to solve the struggles of hiring IT specialists, especially when it comes to finding the right people for the job.
One of the focus areas is the scaling of a technical team. When you find yourself with the need to start scaling up, it’s usually a sign that business is going well. You may need to increase capacity or add another field to your scope. More people means more helping hands, after all.
But as it turns out, scaling software teams can either be surprisingly easy or unsurprisingly hard. This can be attributed to many reasons: from communication issues to attempts to innovate routine processes. If your entire business module stands on software development, in particular, you’ll need get to the point where you need to scale up your software development team sooner rather than later.
Either your customer base starts growing faster, or the stakeholders have new goals that they want to implement the earliest, in both cases, the scaling of your business is essential. Together with Reintech team we will try to find the answer to how scaling up a software devs team is easier than you think.
1. Find the right people
While it may seem like a no-brainer, getting this fundamental area down can actually make or break the entire process. Hiring an employee takes a lot of effort, expense, and commitment. The middle ground where you won’t need to put a lot of effort and money, but you will get complete dedication is outsourcing. Tasks that are excessive and burdening your existing team can be outsourced.
People are the backbone of any company. The concept of “the right person” can mean different things to different people. Understanding of ” the right person” can differ greatly. Sudden changes in the atmosphere of the team can adversely affect its effectiveness. It’s just as important – if not more – to consider the human factor when making decisions about scaling, because they’re the ones who’re going to carry the company vision forward.
2. Synchronize the work load
When it comes to scaling product development teams. coordination issues may be faced. A situation where one team has already finished its part of the project while the second team is still in progress can happen fairly often. As a result, the entire development process slows down because all the parts are interconnected and you can’t go further without the second part being finished.
To avoid this, scale the team by the amount of work it can perform. Discuss plans with other team leaders and reallocate resources when necessary. The team members must calibrate and tune their work flow with each other, given that software development is not an isolated project but very much a collaborative one. Team work is essential when you’re dealing with copious amounts of data and interpreting them in such a way the output should be seamless and uniform.
3. Optimize communication channels
The company’s growth and changes made in the organizational structure make it necessary to revise the communication channels. This is especially true now when many employees work remotely, and the myriad of options for collaborating.
If you have ever worked with remote employees, you know how easily information can be lost.
Redesign the communication channels so that each team member receives the information they need promptly with minimal digital noise. Reintech team made research and determined that with the appropriate remote working tools like their time reports and financial dashboards, you can transform your remote work set-up into a beast of an operation and hire JavaScript developers.
4. Select the right processes and technology
When it comes to managing a distributed amount of people requiring open communication at all times, the right technology will be your saving grace. keeping open communication with the right tools such as video conferencing and project management is not only encouraged but necessary. If you can automate some parts of your work, then trust the process of automation. The automation of tasks will help the teams put their effort into high-impact work rather than mundane tasks.
If you are outsourcing some of the tasks, then your outsourcing contractor should provide the disparate developers with everything they need to do the job. You have to make sure that your in-house team is in sync with the outsource employees and have access to everything they require to do their job.
5. Pair programming
To minify the problem of new team members’ adaptation, use pair programming. The essence of this technique is that a more experienced employee works together with a novice during the first weeks. Working together allows a novice to get used to the company’s processes, tools, and team code writing style faster.
It’s also advisable not to choose the best developers to work with newcomers as they have plenty of core tasks to do. Developers who are a few steps ahead in terms of their knowledge and skills are the best match. Find the right balance between a novice and a beginner, and watch how they bounce off their energy with each other and carry that over into the work they do.
The concept of expansion can be pretty daunting, no matter the context. A software development team is by no means an easy herd to control, but it can feel the most rewarding once you’ve established a smooth flow and see it translate over the quality of work you churn out. It takes more than just patience, but then nothing worth having ever came easy.
