Dedicated Development Team: How Much It Costs and How Does It Work?

Working with small dedicated teams that are easy to control is one of the most optimal solutions for your business if it is connected with the development of mobile applications. This, of course, could be an obvious and unreliable statement of a technical writer that is preparing a sponsored post, but we at Factorial Complexity have a considerable experience in this and everything that you are going to read below is written by the people who interact with these kind of teams on a daily basis.

A usual project team consists of iOS/Android/React Native/Web developers, usually one for each development field, sometimes, even more than one, that are working on project regularly 8 hours per day during a long period of time. Firstly, they create a product and then continue to support it. Designer and a tester can also take part in a project development process from time to time. Designer is usually most involved in the beginning of the project, because the actual development depends on his proposed solutions. Later his clarifications and additional improvements may be needed for the development team in case of implementation of some new features. As for a tester, he gets involved at the very beginning of requirements gathering process and later on, from time to time, to test the already developed features.

As there are both designers and testers in our team, they are usually jump into a specific project when it is required. They are always aware of the project’s scope and are active members for profile issues solving, so that they know about any changes that may occur.

Depending on the customer’s needs, a Project Manager (PM) can be also required to join or, otherwise, planning process, task assignment and daily management can be done on the customer’s side with the involvement of a PM, client (if the customer is an intermediary) or by the customer himself.

What is more, optionally, other team members may be involved in the project if there is a need for their assistance. For example, a Technical Architect or some special-purpose professionals.

It is an obvious case in a team when such process as rotation happens, though it is not a desired thing. But such situations can be easily get rounded on our side. A need to hire additional developers or some other specialists that respond to the customer’s requirements can appear and this is taken under control by our HR department that is using the principles of personnel hiring which are described here. What is more, a need to replace one team member by another specialist can also take place due to the reason of project’s flow and the inability of current developer to cope with new obstacles and challenges.

If during the developers recruiting we concentrate our attention on technical skills as they often define the project’s success, during the PM recruitment we pay the main attention to a high level of English and the first class communication skills. Thus, except for various technical specialists of different qualification, a team on our side can also include a project manager that will be in charge of planning and everyday control of the team’s work.

Communication with the customer usually becomes a PM’s duty in this case, making more time for a developer to write the code and solve the issues that are related to the technical side of the project. One more advantage of this approach is the fact that being a right hand of a customer allows a project manager to collect all the important information and combine it from all the resources on the team side and then transfer it to a client’s side, even correcting the team work flow before a customer’s reply.

However, we cannot say that working with small teams with a PM as a part of it is the only existing true way to interact with these types of teams. There are also some advantages and disadvantages of the teams that communicate with a customer directly. Thus, if a customer is fully involved in the development process and has an opportunity to communicate with his team on a daily basis, is he is ready to be responsible for task management and planning, this can be the optimal variant for certain projects. Anyway, he should know that this case also exists. Our extensive knowledge of working with various types of dedicated teams gives us a right to advise you which kind of interacting seems the most applicable for your business area and provide you with all the necessary resources needed for successful ideas implementation.

Dedicated team is an instrument and how you use it depends on your goals and how much energy you are capable to spend to reach them. Our main task, as we see it, is to provide you with an instrument, ready for working and accommodated with all-round support. We are fully responsible for the conditions in which work the members of your team, their attitude to the project and ensuring that the compensation they get is responding to their vision of justice. Taxes, team buildings, holidays and days-off - are the things that you also do not need to worry about.

Beat.no and Factirial Complexity teams

What is more, our company uses different task trackers, applications for documentation of the spent time, systems for controlling the workflow of the projects. All specialists that are working in the company know how to use them properly and there is no need to introduce any other management solutions as it is better to try using the company’s standards that have already proved their efficiency and are familiar for everyone. This is especially useful if a client doesn’t have any experience yet and doesn’t have any standards.

The same approach should be taken into consideration with the templates of documentation that can be a tool for fixing the agreements, technical aspects, etc., so that there won’t be any need to invent something new.

The payment for a work is traditionally carried out monthly. Before the beginning of the project we agree the sum of a monthly compensation for each team member. At the end of each month a client gets the invoice that reflects the total amount for the project. If during a month the people from the outside were involved in the project, the invoice will also contain the sum that needs to be payed for the work done by them. But our slogan is “no surprises” - all the additional work (that creates additional expenses) is always discussed initially.

Clients our dedicated teams are currently working with have been cooperating with us for years already. And this is the best confirmation that this approach allows to develop the applications of a higher level, polish them to the ideal condition, at least to the level of Instagram or Uber, always support them, expand their functionality and improve the general condition, providing the evolution of the application and, as a result, the development of the brand and business.

Taking everything into consideration, a dedicated team is:

  • An instrument that can be either used by you or by project manager;
  • Help in the development of native iOS, Android or React Native applications - from an idea to support;
  • An ability to solve any problem, if not in the frames of a current team, then by the power of any employee of the company;
  • A predicted cost of the development for each month;
  • Absence of the necessity to think about such organizational questions as office, insurance, relocation, team building or specialists recruitment.

We are always happy to answer any questions that are related to the dedicated teams and the approaches for the best ways to interact with them. You can get a quick response easily from me by sending your question to tatiana.danshyna@factorialcomplexity.com.

Tatiana Danshyna Director / Co-owner at Factorial Complexity