Why Should You Choose a Dedicated Team Model for Outsourced Projects?

The range of available options is rather wide: fixed price, time & materials, dedicated team, in-house team, and freelancers. How can you understand which one is right for your project?

This time we will focus on one of the most popular collaboration models — a dedicated project team from an outsourcing company. A dedicated team offers a flexible yet highly controllable and transparent app development process. Let’s discuss the definition and structure of a dedicated development team model, its main benefits, and which project suits this approach best.

What is a Dedicated Team App Model?

A dedicated development team is a model of collaboration between a client who is looking for mobile app development services and a vendor providing those services. How does it work? An outsourcing company assigns a team of specialists to work on the project on an hourly rate base.

A client pays for the hours each team specialist dedicated to the project. Usually, to get full-cycle development services, you will need such specialists:

• Project manager
• UI/UX designer
• Mobile app developer (iOS, Android, or cross-platform Flutter app development)
• QA specialist
• Optionally business development manager or product manager
  

As you can notice, a dedicated software development team is a cross-functional one and can complete a mobile app development project from A to Z. While each team member has their own area of expertise and responsibilities, the team itself is holistic and takes care of every aspect of the development process.

Additionally, a dedicated team model offers flexibility in the process and is open for adjustments as all the team members are constantly syncing up and usually work using Agile methodology, meaning that the product is constantly being reviewed and improved in iterations.

Suppose you found a reliable outsourcing company willing to provide your project with a dedicated team. What is the process ahead of you?

First, you will discuss your requirements with a sales representative. You may already have some research or even design and tech specifications or just an idea and trust the team’s designers to come up with an app for your business.

Next on, based on your functional and non-functional requirements and overall expectations for the delivery date, a company will select the specialists available for the project based on your tech stack, app complexity, seniority level needed, and so on.

After a proposition meeting, where all the milestones and deliverables are discussed, and signing the contract, the project manager will establish the communication channels, set the first tasks, and get the work going. Meanwhile, you will likely have a kickoff meeting with the team to get to know each other and discuss any questions.

During the work process, you will stay in touch with the project manager to get regular updates on the progress, review the team’s work, give suggestions, and ask for any adjustments or clarifications. Additionally, you can always contact the other team members directly and track their progress with a project management tool.

Not too complicated, right? The absence of micromanagement and administrative tasks is one of the biggest advantages of working with an outsourced development team. What are the other pros of this collaboration model?

What Are the 4 Reasons to Hire a Dedicated Team?

Seems like the best mobile app development system ever, doesn’t it? Surely, a dedicated team model has significant advantages but some types of projects might benefit from this approach more than others. Which are those?

Your project is long-term

Dedicated teams are perfect for long-term projects that require constant engagement and full-cycle work. If you just need your ready UI/UX design implemented, a time & materials model would work better as your project would require only one or two specialists. At the same time, if you need a complete app created from scratch, a dedicated team will work better. Additionally, during longer-term projects, some adjustments in a team composition or work scope might be necessary, which is not a problem for dedicated teams.

You need to have management outside

As we have mentioned above, one of the biggest advantages of a dedicated team model for outsourced projects is that you, as a product owner, don’t need to undertake any of the management tasks, be it HR operations or deadline estimations. If you are not ready to undertake that amount of responsibility, better invite a dedicated team to work on your project.

You don’t have enough tech expertise

If you feel like your technical background knowledge is not enough to make well-informed decisions, it is better to collaborate with a dedicated team that can not only get the job done but also consult you on the tech choices suitable for your project.

You haven’t set clear requirements

The need for consulting doesn’t come down to technical matters only. One of the reasons to hire a dedicated team is to ask for assistance drafting your requirements, choosing a feature set, or deciding on the monetization strategy. Specialists in your dedicated team can help you sort out these and other questions while giving ongoing support during the whole project timeline.

8 Key Benefits of a Dedicated Development Team

Hiring a dedicated team offers many benefits to business owners. After all, it is one of the most popular collaboration models for a reason. Let’s review some of the biggest advantages of choosing a dedicated team model for IT outsourcing to complete your mobile app.

No administrative tasks

All the admin chores, like taking care of the taxes, work contracts, HR operations (managing days off, sick leaves, hiring and onboarding employees), and organizing the work process are not your problem. The company providing you services and the project manager of a team will take care of these and leave you more time to focus on the business.

Cost-effectiveness

With a dedicated team model for outsource, you are paying a fixed hourly rate for each specialist working on your project. The company’s margin is already included in the rate, so you are only paying for the hours worked on your app. The rate depends on the company’s location, size, recognition, and the team members’ seniority level and specialization. Hiring a dedicated team allows you to find a company that offers a good quality-price rate and cuts the expenses of setting up an in-house team, like offering employee benefits and creating a workspace.

Flexibility

If there is an adjustment you want to make to a design, it is no problem to arrange it. Because a specific team is working exclusively on your project, there is more space for maneuvering, adapting the workflow, or even inviting extra specialists. Additionally, the Agile methodology used by many teams is based on iterations, meaning a change is always welcomed.

Access to the top specialists

Outsourcing a dedicated team, either in your own country or from abroad, significantly increases your chances of finding specialists that match your preferred tech stack and have experience in your domain. It might be quite a challenge to know how to find app developers experienced in your industry for an in-house team as you are bound to one location. Outsourcing a team from abroad introduces you to a large talent pool otherwise unavailable.

Transparency

When collaborating with an outsourced dedicated team for the first time, some entrepreneurs might have fears when it comes to reporting, rates, and overall process control. You shouldn’t worry about this — a collaboration with a reliable outsourcing company is extremely transparent.

As a client, you will sign a contract outlining the deadlines, payment model, deliverables, and other parameters. You can check the progress and hours spent on every task in a project management tool, get reports, organize calls with a project manager or other specialists as often as you need, and receive clear financial invoices with detailed time tracking reports.

No team management from your side

You don’t have to dedicate time to set tasks for each team member, review their progress, and fix bottlenecks as you would with a group of freelancers or an in-house team. Those are the responsibilities of the project manager and the company’s management in general. You just check the reports as often as you feel like and give your feedback on the product.

Well-established processes

If the thought of the chaos of a newly established team and the need to organize the workflow from scratch scares you, hiring a dedicated team is right up your alley. Your team has a set of rules and guidelines for productive work and is constantly supervised by a project manager. It is not their first project together, so positive dynamics and proper team communication are guaranteed.

Full focus on your project

Finally, one more advantage of a dedicated team model is hidden in the very name: dedicated. The team works exclusively on your project, has enough time to study all the parameters, and is fully focused on its progress. As a result, you don’t have to worry about postponed deadlines or not enough dedication to the results.

How a Dedicated Development Team is Hired?

So how do you hire an outsourced team of developers for your project? There are several steps in the hiring process that can help you secure a collaboration with a reliable and professional team.

Define clear expectations

Before heading out in a search of a perfect team ready to undertake your project, make sure you know what the expected outcome of the collaboration should be. Think about your deliverables (e.g. a finished UI/UX design, a ready-to-use app deployed to the markets), preferred tech stack, deadlines, and budget. You should also consider which factors can help you make the right choice (like the team's experience in your industry or in-house business consulting).

Research the market

Having all of your requirements and preferences in mind, you can start looking for a suitable dedicated team. Based on your budget, the team's location can be in your own country, Eastern Europe, or not limited geographically at all. Remember that outsourcing a team from Eastern European countries, like Ukraine, can significantly cut down your budget while offering top-tier quality.

You can find an outsourcing company on such platforms as Clutch, GoodFirms, and LinkedIn. Dribbble and Behance are platforms for designers where you can look through their portfolios and get in touch with the designers working in outsourcing companies.  

Review the team's portfolio and hop on a call

Suppose you found a few companies that match your requirements: you looked through their website, read the reviews, found out the scope of services they provide, and learned their location. It's high time to get the candidates better. Contact the sales team through a form on the company's website or social media.

In most cases, a representative will offer to discuss your project on call. Don't miss out on this opportunity: talk about the team's previous projects, how they worked on those, what were the challenges and solutions. Such a discussion will give you an insight into the team's work style, values, and approach toward collaborating with clients. Additionally, it is your chance to ask for any details about the admin side of the matter, such as work scheduling, pricing model, and contract details.

Sign a contract and NDA

If the outsourcing team you talked with sounds like a perfect match, you can go on and sign a contract with the company.  Read this document carefully because it will outline all the important details of your collaboration, such as deadlines, deliverables, areas of responsibilities, and, of course, the financial aspects. Usually, an outsourcing company will also provide you with a project roadmap that contains more details of the milestones and workflow. One more crucial document is NDA explaining the confidential information and intellectual property policies.

Consider Perperio Your Trusted Partner

A dedicated team is one of the collaboration models we offer our clients at Perpetio, along with the fixed price and time & material approaches. Mostly, we find the dedicated team model suitable for full-cycle mobile app development projects that require all stages of the development cycle. We always discuss a suitable collaboration model based on the project’s requirements, budget, and time constraints.

For us at Perpetio, a dedicated team means a holistic approach and a high level of specialists’ availability for the client. A client receives free tech and business development consulting all along the project and can contact an expert any time to discuss a question or get advice.

Conclusion

Thanks to the rapid development of the app development industry and the opportunities of remote and gig-based work, businesses can choose between several application development collaboration models and choose the one that fits them best.

The dedicated team model for outsourcing is one of the most popular app development approaches and for a good reason; it allows entrepreneurs to hire a full-cycle team of skilled specialists that are solely focused on one project. Additionally, this model takes the headache of hiring and managing a team from you as well as doesn’t require too much legal and organizational support from your side.

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