Are you planning a software development project? Getting your project done efficiently requires putting together the best skills in the industry.
Depending on the complexity of your software project, you will need a software designer, architecture, developer, quality analyst, and security testing expert in your team.
But building a high-performing dev squad that works remotely is not easy, making it necessary for you to create the right strategy.
In this article, we will consider what a dev squad is, its characteristics and how to build a high-performing remote team of developers.
Key Points
A dev squad is a group of experts with the skills to develop software products that meet customers' expectations.
The team comprises a software architect, designer and developer, UI/UX designer, quality assurance engineer, and security tester who work on a project from a remote location.
They have the technical skills to complete all the deliverables listed in the software project requirements and to ensure that the product fulfils business requirements.
A high-performing dev team not only collaborates but consistently provides superior results and meets goals with little supervision, and can make decisions and be accountable for their actions.
To assemble the right team of engineers, you must carefully analyse the project requirements to determine the team size, choose the best structure that suits your project, and ensure you have all the roles covered.
With all the essential roles covered, you should set up project management software to speed up operations and establish productive communication.
The following heading discusses the characteristics of a dev team. e
A good software development squad has characteristics that make it stand out.
Having the right team structure is the first step to getting it right when building a high-performing remote team of developers. Before assembling your remote team, you must decide which structure best suits your business, organisation, and project requirements.
How many remote developers do you want to hire, and what will be their roles? Do you want to hire software developers from a similar time zone, or will they come from around the world?
While most organisations favour offshoring, others prefer nearshore development because it is more efficient. Nearshore development is hiring software engineers from a country in a similar time zone as yours.
Aside from that, you can easily find software developers with a work culture similar to your organisation when you build a team of nearshore developers.
While studies have confirmed a tremendous increase in the productivity of a remote team, you need to recognise that the increase is a result of hiring the right fit.
Since the team will be working from home and you won't be present to supervise them, you need to source developers you can trust to handle tasks efficiently and within the deadline.
You should consider not only job-specific capabilities and experience but soft skills that will positively impact the task and your organisation.
Some skills to consider include:
Trust and accountability are essential for success when assembling a remote team of developers. You will find it hard to hold your team accountable, and they will find it hard to know specific requirements without guidelines and expectations.
One tip for setting clear guidelines and expectations is to stress shared team culture. Since your dev squad is not a separate company, encouraging a shared culture is necessary to get everyone working in sync.
A good onboarding process is necessary to keep your team members informed about your organisation's culture and other requirements related to what they will do.
Work culture defines the values, purposes, behaviours, and work ethics each member must strive for. A strong work culture means each team member knows their responsibility and expectations and aligns with the organisation's vision.
You must arrange training sessions, introductory meetings, and other work documents for new team members to ensure smooth onboarding.
Examples of expectations you can set include:
Staying in touch with your team when you are in the same office is easy, but when you engage a nearshore team, it is quite different. It would help to establish a regular communication schedule when forming your remote team.
You can set regular communication by:
Team members must know the tools available for communication and how to use them. Use tech tools like video conferencing to facilitate interactions between you and your team and between team members.
Each team member might need guidance and help with various matters, set up one-to-one communication to provide this guidance.
A communication tool like Slack can provide your team with a reliable channel for communication about specific projects. When you develop a communication channel, your squad can quickly share work-related issues and offer solutions.
To build a high-performing remote team, you must give them the right tools to do their job. It would help if you considered using online tech tools to keep projects, individual deliverables, tasks, and timelines in one central location.
Ensure team members have the right tech tools they need for their work. For example, a developer might need development software for a specific programming language, while a designer may need design software like Photoshop.
Cloud-based project management software help tracks each task and makes it possible for the team to collaborate and know which task is assigned to them, the deliverables, and the deadlines.
The ideal cloud-based software you will need for your organisation depends on the project size and budget. Here are some examples of cloud-based project management tools you can use:
Whichever software you use, you should communicate how you want your team to use it by providing them with the necessary training and access.
An impartial feedback mechanism will give each team member a chance to voice their concerns and raise issues related to the project.
If necessary, you can organise one-on-one meetings with your remote team to capture their views and concerns about the work culture. Also, you must set up appropriate metrics and a measurement system to improve your feedback mechanism.
Team members must feel welcome to share their ideas and build creativity when collaborating on a project. Building a work culture that fosters creative thinking opens the door to positive changes that can directly impact your organisation.
Members of your dev squad will work better when goals are clear. You can use the agile metric to estimate set goals.
Agile metrics are standards used to measure the work progress of your team. Also called Agile KPIs, the metrics help organisations keep a realistic and data-based overview of progress to ensure higher productivity and better software quality.
The metrics can cover various aspects such as production, quality assurance and team health and can help you get realistic snapshots of the work in progress and completed task.
Also, it can nurture self-management among team members and fosters continuous improvement, helping the team focus on work and delivering value to the end user.
Building a high-performing development team is not an easy task by any means, and it takes many months and lots of resources to accomplish. Another downside is that your business will waste all that time without getting results.
Deazy can solve that problem for you by giving you access to a fully built dev squad that’s perfectly suited for completing your development project.
A good dev squad is unlike the regular in-house team that works from an office. Instead, the team has the necessary technical skills and the ability to work independently with little supervision. Also, the team is not micromanaged; each member knows what to do and takes responsibility for actions.
To organise a development team, you must determine the project size and ensure that you hire developers to cover all the roles. When assembling your team, you must define the roles and responsibilities and ensure each member understands the specific project requirements.
Software architect, developer, and designer are part of the roles of a typical dev team. Aside from that, a dev squad may have a UX and UI designer, QA engineer, business analyst, and project manager as part of the team. All these experts are involved in the development of the software product.
Agile working recommends team sizes of 3 to 9 members, while some software engineering managers believe 7 is the right team size. But the actual team size depends on your project size and complexity. The tip to setting up an excellent and high-performing dev team is to ensure that all the roles are covered.
A high-performing team pursues excellence through shared goals, openly communicates and has clear expectations of the project requirements. Also, a great team has a strong sense of accountability and, above all, has the right technical skills for the project.