Approximately 90% of IT companies suffer from insufficient employee involvement in product development, according to many reputable agile coaches. Typically, such a flaw is associated with an ineffective software development team structure. Employees of IT companies, for example, act as ordinary performers of specific tasks but are not active work process participants due to the absence of some specialists. When the right links (particularly in the management sections) in the software-making chain are missing, business leaders hire new employees or train existing ones. The first scenario necessitates time for corporate, organizational, psychological, and technological adaptation. As a result, training existing employees is frequently less difficult. In this case, it is sufficient to cover the cost of educational courses. And for those wondering how to do my homework, the owners of IT companies may be able to find online platforms that provide corresponding assistance.
How Do You Form a Good Software Development Team Without Spending a Lot of Money?
For these purposes, coaches and business analysts are frequently invited. Such specialists can identify hidden problems in the team and develop a list of recommendations to improve the workflow. Money turnover in business analytics is increasing by more than 7% per year, according to Mordor Intelligence. It demonstrates that an increasing number of entrepreneurs recognise the value of such services.
What Issues Require Special Attention?
Most problems in software development teams are caused by an incorrect definition of roles. The issue is frequently caused by:
- Inadequate qualification or a lack of a team leader. Owners of companies should understand that, in addition to a high level of professionalism in the technical component of the work, such specialists must be able to ensure proper software development team management. As a result, team leaders must be organizationally capable.
- There is a significant disparity in the skills of employees at the middle and senior levels. Ordinary employees in many IT companies must search for 90% of unfamiliar information on their own. It’s because the seniors simply don’t have time to answer the middles’ questions. As a result, the workflow contains no learning process. As a result, the management is unhappy with the work speed of ordinary employees.
- Teamwork is lacking. Many teams have an unhealthy environment, and communication is done with humiliation and ridicule rather than with a partner or mentor. Furthermore, many businesses regard development-stage mistakes as unforgivable. The latter is possibly the most serious flaw in managing a software development team.
Business coaches and analysts can assist in resolving or avoiding the issues. As a result, such experts are simply essential for creating an efficient workflow.
Roles and Responsibilities of the Software Development Team
First, the role of the team leader should be mentioned. Such employees serve as a bridge between management and ordinary developers within a company’s departments. Team leaders are typically the most experienced employees in creating specific products within an organisation. These employees’ responsibilities are as follows:
- Analysis of the most difficult aspects of projects
- Assisting the team (particularly the juniors and middles);
- Coordination of the development process
According to All Homework Assignments Developer Survey 2022, over 80% of professional developers worldwide work full-time, with only about 16% working as freelancers. As a result, finding a ready-made team leader is difficult. As a result, such specialists are primarily developed rather than born. Experts recommend the following members of the development team:
- Position of project manager
- Frontend developer (works on the app’s customer side);
- Backend programmer (works with the hardware of web applications);
- QA engineer (also known as software testers);
- Manager of the customer service
Characteristics Of The Project Manager Position
Those interested in learning how to manage a software development team should be aware that such employees are in charge of organizing the overall workflow. Project managers’ (or PMs’) primary responsibilities include the following:
- Assistance with customer communication.
- Task delegation to company departments
- Holding regular consultations as well as team meetings.
- Control over the completion of assigned tasks
IT project managers should not understand advanced development. Projects can also be led by people who do not have a technical background. Personal characteristics are more important in this case (e.g., communicability, stress resistance, along with the ability to be flexible when making decisions)
What Should You Know About Frontend Developers?
These employees’ development team roles are as follows:
- CSS and HTML layout of designer samples Furthermore, frontend developers frequently understand the fundamentals of JavaScript. However, when it is necessary to use this coding language, they seek the assistance of JS specialists.
- Making interfaces from scratch and creating user interfaces.
- Setting up site features (sliders, keys, etc.) and testing their functionality.
Furthermore, frontend developers should be familiar with the fundamentals of adaptive layout, multiplatform, and cross-browser software.
Backend Developers’ Responsibilities
These professionals work with software, as well as the internal content of the apps, the administrative portion of web applications, and server technologies (architecture, database, and so on). In other words, the backend begins when you press the Enter key in a search engine, for example. Those interested in learning how to build software development teams should keep in mind that professional coders in Java, PHP, or Python may be required when preparing backend programmers.
Characteristics of the UI/UX Designer Position
These employees’ primary responsibilities include:
- Gathering information about current projects and their target audiences
- Style development and the creation of font, colour, and size specifications;
- Creating user scenarios
- Interface design in graphic editors
- Layout and prototype creation
In short, UI/UX designers are responsible for everything related to the appearance of web applications, as well as analytics on how users interact with such software. Furthermore, the specialists described determine what is important, useless, or annoying to consumers.
Position for QA Engineer
Those in charge of software development teams should be aware that these IT employees verify the correct operation of the applications and look for any errors or flaws in the software. Technical documentation or even common sense guide such specialists. Testers examine applications from the perspective of both a programmer and a user. As a result, they “intervene” in the development process on occasion and offer to add more convenient features to apps.
Such experts should think in terms of solutions and consider not only the project’s starting point or the creation process, but also the outcome to which the team will lead a consumer. Furthermore, an account manager must communicate in a language that both the contractor and the client understand. Finally, the quality of the work performed, and the number of project improvements are dependent on it.
How Do You Put Together A Software Development Team?
By combining all of the above information, we can create the following checklist for IT companies’ working processes:
- Track issues as a group. Use business analysts to help you with this.
- Examine the effectiveness of team leaders.
- Examine your current frontend/backend coders, UI/UX designers, and QA engineers. If they require coding assistance, provide it in JS, Java, CSS, Python, PHP, or HTML.
- Check that managers have the necessary personal characteristics.
- Experts recommend performing the aforementioned actions on a regular basis. It will assist the team in expanding and bringing in more and more profits.
