Delivery Teams Vs IT Staff Augmentation – What’s the right choice?

The current business environment is intensely competitive and ever-changing. The frequency of new technologies emerging has started to skyrocket. Since the industry has begun to adopt these new technologies, all companies are required to keep up with innovation. Organizations that lag behind the IT innovation curve will have a difficult time staying relevant in the industry.

Furthermore, the success of a business also depends on their ability to deliver projects on time. Out of all these needs of companies, the concept of outsourcing was born. Since then, it has been cultivated as an extremely efficient tool to help organizations to maximize productivity while effectively managing employee and customer relationships. An outsourcing partner allows a company to supplement their existing abilities. It will enable management to ensure that their project is successful. The two most popular outsourcing models in the industry are autonomous delivery teams and staff augmentation.

Delivery Teams

This model consists of an external team that consists of key personnel. Generally, team members include an experienced manager, software engineers, and testers. These key personnel leads the effort in terms of setting up the process, the KPIs, quality, and so on. The key benefit of using delivery teams is that executives can conceptualize software and leave the tedious software development process to an external team of specialized programmers. The outside team can complete the process without much involvement of the in-house team.

Here Are The Key Advantages Of Delivery Teams

Faster Response Time

Autonomous delivery teams allow managers to respond to any developments in the industry rapidly. It enables them to quickly create custom software to meet the growing demands of customers. Since the average hiring time in the IT industry is a month, companies spend a month getting an in-house team hired. Usually, staff are hired after the software is conceptualized. Hence, there is a waiting period of over a month. The loss of productivity during this period can be very frustrating for companies. Autonomous delivery teams help management avoid this frustration and get development started immediately. The external development team is ready to start a project on-cue.

Less Burden On Management

When companies develop projects in-house, there is a considerable burden of supervision on the management. As a result, key personnel does not have enough time to focus on business. Autonomous delivery teams will help the company delegate the responsibility of managing projects to an experienced leader. This allows the managers to focus on other, more productive areas of business.

Increases Specialization And Reduces Risk

Software development projects require several months of planning, a specialized team, and substantial financial capital. There is an enormous risk in investing large sums of money in software development projects. If the software fails to return a profit, there is a huge financial loss. Autonomous delivery teams reduce this risk in several ways. They provide a team of highly specialized, experienced engineers. Most importantly, in this model, clients make the final payment after the delivery of the project. Therefore, even the outsourcing company has a financial stake in the process.

Even though the delivery team model has many advantages, it is not without some disadvantages.

Here are the drawbacks of using autonomous delivery teams:

Lack Of Control

In this model, managers lose control over daily development tasks. Often, the lack of control can be very frustrating for managers. However, this problem can be mitigated with clear communication. Supervisors must be provided regular updates about each step in the development process.

Finding The Right Team

It can sometimes become challenging to find a quality outsourcing partner to work with. A weak delivery team is more likely to develop inferior software that does not meet customer demands. Therefore, Managers must perform their due diligence before signing an outsourcing contract. Thorough research of industry reputation and prior work can be very insightful and helpful in choosing the right team.

Staff Augmentation

In a team augmentation model, the management hires additional contracted employees to complement the work of an existing in-house team. The augmented staff contribute their expertise during critical stages of the software development cycle. Since these specialized employees take responsibility for the development process, the company is saved a lot of time and money.

Here Are The Key Benefits Of Staff Augmentation

More Expertise

A company with highly-qualified developers is in a position of tremendous advantage. With the aggressive competition in the industry, it has become tough to find these skill sets. Team augmentation allows a company to augment its staff with a specialized member. It gives them access to experts all over the world.

Scalability

It allows outsourcing roles to experienced external members on an as-needed basis. Therefore, a company can maintain a lean and agile internal staff. Since this model has no long-term employment commitment, it provides management with the flexibility they need. It allows companies to upscale or downscale their teams based on industry demand. Therefore, companies can create accurate budgets and are prepared for their next major project.

Related Read: Staff Augmentation For Outsourcing Projects In The IT Industry

Here Are The Major Drawback Of Staff Augmentation Model

Heavy Burden On Management

Unlike autonomous delivery teams, the management is burdened with the entirety of responsibility that a project entails. In this model, managers are responsible for their permanent employees and their augmented staff. In addition to the responsibility for these new employees, managers also have to execute their core duties.

There is a multitude of benefits to both outsourcing models, but choosing the right model for you comes down to your organizational needs.