# Dedicated Development Team: Benefits and Downsides of the Model

The effective development of technological business projects goes hand in hand with the work of the technical team. It’s logical that to create various software products different engagement models are used. Yes, guys, everything is individual, just like with the selection of Nike sneakers through their website.

Around the same thing happens with the choice of interaction mechanism during software development. Depending on the project scale, features and purposes, as well as the financial capabilities of its owners, the company chooses a certain engagement model for cooperation with an IT contractor. Recently, companies are increasingly resorting to injecting into their structures a Dedicated development team through the offshoring. Why are they doing this? First of all, it helps to speed up and improve the development of software, get the necessary technical expertise, and also optimize costs.

Some statistics

Statistics show that every year more and more businesses use the offshore software development services. A survey by Statistics Brain noted that 44% of US companies, in order to cut costs, prefer to use offshore software development. Also, a Statista report showed that in 2018, IT services offshore amounted to $62 billion.

Harvard Business Review reports that an average dedicated development team is boosting productivity by 10% and is more likely to stick to the budget. Working on the project, team members learn to trust each other and develop a deep knowledge of the subject area, which leads to a decreasing the quantity of coding errors and increased productivity.

A few words about engagement models

There are several engagement models for collaboration with the software development company. Typically, customers choose the cooperation model depending on the goals and scope of the project, as well as on the basis of their financial capabilities. Among the most popular there are: Fixed Price, Time and Materials, FFF - Fixed time, Fix budget, Flex-scope; Milestone based model, and Dedicated Team. Based on them, custom software development cost is also formed. Namely it's determined when, how much, and how the payment for the services of the software provider will be made. In some cases, IT companies collaborate with clients according to a mixed model. Among the existing models, the Dedicated Team model stands out very qualitatively. That’s the subject we would like to discuss today.

What the engagement model Dedicated Team is about?

This is an engagement model, the hallmark of which lies in its name. According to the Dedicated Team model for the software development of your business project an offshore company allocates a team of IT specialists. This team of software developers and other IT professionals focuses entirely on the client’s project, without switching to other tasks. Dedicated team is formed based on the goals, wishes and requirements of the software customer. Dedicated Team model is excellent for developing large-scale long-term software projects where requirements often change, as the project is managed by specially appointed experts. Dedicated Team model provides flexibility in the work scope and tasks, as well as in changes in costs and resources. Flexibility also applies to the software development team itself. If necessary, the client can increase or decrease its number.

To work within the Dedicated Team model guidelines, client and software provider сome to agreements on the project requirements and overall workload. And in the list of project requirements, the parties to cooperation indicate the necessary amount of time for development. Usually, working by this model, the client manages the entire software development process. They themselves make decisions regarding the project software development, and remain in constant contact with the technical team. Working by the Dedicated Team model, the client “rents” a team of IT specialists from their software vendor and pays a monthly fee, which includes the salary of team members and the charge to the supplier.

It turns out that engaging a Dedicated team, you, in a sense, hire commandos who are inspired by your goals, follow your orders, and will not leave you halfway to the goal if something goes wrong. =) They are like your own private “special forces”.

Despite the fact that the Dedicated Team model involves hiring a team to develop software that is dedicated to your project 100% of its working time, there are two aspects. In one case, the Dedicated development team can be a separate group with full service, which includes all the necessary employees, such as designers, project manager, QA engineer and developers, the entire management staff and other team members. In another case, the customer can hire a dedicated team to expand their own team, which allows them to strengthen the core internal software development team with several experienced IT professionals.

How does this model function?

1. The software development customer transfers their purposes, desires and preferences, as well as determines the required quantity of developers on the project team and their skills.
2. An offshore IT-company provides a Dedicated team that accurately meets business project demands.
3. United in a Dedicated team of IT professionals begin to work on the project.
4. The customer controls the software product development and remains in constant contact with the Dedicated development team.

The reasons why it's worth working by the Dedicated team model:

1) Model Dedicated team is cost-effective.

The customers significantly save on infrastructure, since hiring a team, they only make hourly wages for remote work on the project. They don't need to worry about renting an office for a team, getting equipment, paying electricity bills, etc. In addition, it’s much cheaper and faster to hire a Dedicated software development team than to independently search and select team members with the necessary skills.

2) Great for large, complex projects.

This model is useful in large software development projects when it's difficult to think everything through to the end. But in the case when the large scale project has clear objectives and a set of final requirements, the Time & Material model may be a better option.

3) An access to IT expertise.

If you hire a Dedicated development team, this allows you to compensate for the lack of experts to realize your unique business idea. Together with them you get the expertise of a wide range of IT specialists, the needed skills, knowledge and a resource base. Moreover, a Dedicated team members can be first-class Troubleshooters, because they have extensive experience in developing custom software solutions. This allows owners to focus on other tasks.

4) High work efficiency.

The team of performers is well acquainted with the project, deeply understands its requirements, is focused on quality and works on a long-term basis.

5) Direct communication and monitoring of the team.

According to the Dedicated team offshore model, the client can directly manage each specialist from the group provided by the IT company. The client receives their own remote employees for a certain period of time.

6) The client fully controls and manages the software development process.

Dedicated Team model allows the customer to have complete control over team members and manage the entire software development process. The customer participates in the process of hiring IT specialists, and also manages the development process at all phases, receiving regular reports on the accomplished tasks. If desired, they can entrust all the project work to an offshore IT company that provided the Dedicated team.

7) Greater flexibility in planning and managing change.

Working according to the Dedicated Team engagement model, a software customer at any stage of development can make changes to the project, add functions to the software product, and also distribute tasks among the executors.

8) Team flexibility and scalability.

From the very beginning of work by the Dedicated Team model, the customers independently decide how many people they need to hire for project software development. If necessary, customers can add participants, and they have the right to reduce or increase the team.

9) Transparent pricing system.

The pricing is quite simple here - every month the customer pays salary to all software team members, as well as a payment to the service vendor. And the total cost of the project is formed depending on the assigned tasks and the amount of time required to complete them.

10) The most reliable for the customer of all the engagement models.

This is achieved due to the model flexibility, transparency and 100% payback of the hired team. The Dedicated Team model allows you to prevent many risks and eases the clients fears of getting the wrong product, as well as fear of overpaying in the process of software product creating.

We must always maintain objectivity in every aspect. Here are some downsides of the Dedicated Team development model:

1. Ineffective for short-term projects.

For small software development projects, it is more efficient to use the Fixed Price engagement model.

2. The client needs to carefully plan the processes and assign tasks for each team member.

But this is only if the client decides to manage the software development team on their own. These tasks can be performed by a hired project manager.

3. The software customer invests a considerable amount of time in team management and control of the development process.

Again, this is in case they will control the software development process by themselves. If desired, they can save themselves from these hassles and entrust the project management to the offshore company that provided the Dedicated Team, and only from time to time receive reports on the fulfilled work.

4. It is considered to be the most expensive among engagement models.

It’s used in the development of long-term large-scale projects, the development of which, in principle, cannot be cheap. But in the long run, on the contrary, it’s economically viable and allows you to optimize costs.

Dedicated Team model is transparent, flexible, makes possible having close cooperation with the development team, and as a result get the product that you expect. Moreover, with the competent choice of an offshore IT company, you are able to get a high-quality product that guarantees a steady return on investment.

But in order to choose a reliable team for the software development of your project, be sure to check out what services a really good IT company must provide you with, and what additional items it may offer. The main thing is to look for a team that will not just write code, but will offer a solution and will be as involved and interested in the maximum result as possible.

Let's talk about your project!