It is conceivable that you've read of the topic of team augmentation but never put it into practice. Maybe you didn't require it. However, if outsourcing of specialists becomes increasingly common this might change at any time. What precisely is it about? Who is it for? What makes us think it's a good idea? All of this will be covered in this post. Let's get started!
What is Team Augmentation?
Team augmentation is an outsourcing method in which external employees are utilized to deal with a specific business requirement, usually to manage transitory surges in demand or to finish a specific project.
Team augmentation, also known as staff augmentation is an effective way for responding to changing customer needs and business challenges. Some of the most crucial benefits it provides are:
- It is cost-effective: team augmentation doesn’t require any investment in infrastructure and reduces the costs of hiring and training in-house specialists. In this model, you only pay for what you need on an on-demand basis.
- It gives you flexibility: staff augmentation allows businesses to scale their workforce up and down.
- No admin task: by using staff augmentation you don’t need to train employees or go through a complicated hiring process. It’s the vendor’s responsibility to deal with organizational and administrative responsibilities so you can focus on the core business activities.
When researching the topic of team augmentation you can also come across the notion ‘body leasing’. It’s still not as popular as a team or staff augmentation, but we expect it to creep its way into the outsourcing dictionary. Individual specialists who provide a wide range of skills to organizations in need of them are referred to as "body leasing." The lessee hires these sorts of experts regularly to help him with the project by leveraging their knowledge and experience.
This type of collaboration might last only a few days or several months, depending on the circumstances.
Advantages of Team Augmentation
Here are some advantages and benefits of Team Augmentation strategies.
Operations
- Easy accounting — only one invoice.
- Time and material costs are the only costs associated with working hours.
- Involvement in the development of our engineers' career pathways.
- At least once a year, standardized engineer verification using PDA (Personal Development Assessment).
- On the j-labs side, you are in charge of the engineer.
Time
- Engineers with a proven track record are readily accessible.
- Only engage for the term of the project.
- Engineers with declared competencies at declared time.
Customer Relationships
- Deep understanding of customer's project requirements.
- Dedicated account manager for each engineer.
- Long-term relationships with our customers.
Recruitment
- A dedicated staff of recruiters.
- A CV database for a rich engineer.
- One-on-one contact (dedicated recruitment specialist to each candidate).
- Standardized engineer's technical verification.
The Differences between Team Augmentation and Team Outsourcing
Staff augmentation is the periodic hiring of IT workers with expertise in a variety of software development domains. Its most often utilized to simplify project management and lowest operational costs. It can be used by large, medium, and even small businesses.
In other words, it is a method of obtaining the services of individual members of a development team to perform an IT project of your choice. It is a suggested solution for all organizations that have expertise with software development, know what they want to achieve and how they want to do it, but want assistance in forming a team. But a major lacking is of a competent Scrum Master, Business Analyst, or a single Developer.
With Teams Outsourcing, you can request a full, professional team to work on your job without having to use your company's workforce. The distinction is that instead of a single individual with a set of abilities from a specific area of interest, it is a group of people working together to complete tasks for a stakeholder. You don't need to be an expert on each step of software development since the experts you employ will take care of it and give the results you want. They could be operating distantly from another nation, and you will only be notified of Sprint's results. As a stakeholder, you have to either approve the product or convey the modifications that need to be made.
When to use Team Augmentation?
Here are the situations that are best suited to use the team augmentation strategy:
When you want Richness in Synergy
This is particularly essential in the case of software houses or businesses that specialize in software development. The variations in project numbers in such companies can be managed by staff augmentation, with the premise that some of the headcount (0–10 %) is outsourced. This allows the company to be more flexible in terms of how many people it hires.
Employees benefit as well because they have access to various projects and organizational cultures when they work via an agent like that. Everyone at an outsourcing company has the option of choosing from a variety of clients and projects. This has a synergistic and cooperative effect: the software house buffers the number of workers through its suppliers, which can assure employee security.
When an Expert is Needed
Team augmentation ensures that you get access to the latest technology experts. For example, suppose a firm requires specialists in a certain sector since it will launch a new initiative that would need breaking new ground. Recruiting is a common method of acquiring new employees. However, this notion is frequently abandoned due to too many organizational, financial, and temporal constraints.
Staff augmentation works well in this situation, especially if you specialize in one technology but have a customer in another. If you want to keep working with that customer, you'll need to move swiftly and hire a valuable person to the team to satisfy the project's needs.
When you are in the process of looking for an investor
A Minimum Viable Product (MVP) is an early edition that has only enough features for potential customers to show what it can do. Investors will only accept this model if they can see that it works. It takes time and money to create an MVP. Instead of going through lengthy procedures, try outsourcing specialists: hire a team to complete the task for you. The leased staff will return to the provider when they are finished, and you may begin looking for an investor without worrying about further expenditures.
When Budgeting for Projects, not FTEs
In many situations, the available funding is assigned to a particular project rather than FTEs. There's no use in going into depth about why things are the way they are since several forces are at play. Consider a scenario in which a new system is being developed, but not through full-time employees or traditional outsourcing because the project is being implemented outside the company. Team augmentation is the solution here: hiring an expert or specialists who will assist you in moving forward while remaining inside the framework of your company for a while as leased, rather than normal, workers.
When you Try and Hire in-house
For the client and the employee, try and hire (or try and purchase) is an intriguing process. To put it another way, you should recruit someone after you've tested them. There is no way of getting to know someone in depth or observe how they work throughout the hiring process. Even if you have chosen someone who appears to be very promising, there is always the risk of a letdown when it comes to actual project work. Nobody will reimburse you for the money invested in the recruiting process, let alone the time spent on the new employee's induction. This is where team augmentation comes in handy.
To Avoid Additional Costs
In team augmentation, the client pays for the time worked by the employee leased by the supplier. The leasing business is responsible for all associated expenditures, including salary and additional expenses, such as the costs of the employee's growth. This may be defined as payroll plus since the leasing company relieves the customer of most of the responsibilities, which is especially essential if the client is starting a new business or establishing a new branch. Furthermore, team augmentation might be a type of recruiting business that includes locating and hiring employees.
Top tips to follow in Staff Augmentation
There are quite a few rules you can follow when augmenting your team (or outsourcing a fully-fledged one) that will ensure the process is as seamless as possible.
1. Detailed vendor research
When choosing a vendor, you should not go with the one with the lowest quote - although they might not always be the worst. It is important to carefully sift through the potential candidates, review their experience and previous customers. You can verify them in catalogs like Clutch or GoodFirms, definitely visit their website and look for similar case studies and testimonials. You can also consider requesting a code sample or even schedule a pair-programming or trial job.
2. Prepare a request for proposal
RFPs come in handy when discussing the details of the project and estimating the costs. A well-written RFP will allow the vendor to more accurately assess your requirements, come up with the right team, think about the best tech stack and, of course, give you the pricing.
3. Legalities in contracts
Just like any other contract, outsourcing contracts can be quite complicated. Before you sign one, you should consult a legal advisor, and if you don’t have one, you can always conduct the research on your own. Quite recently we have published an article talking about outsourcing contracts in more detail, so feel free to check it out.
4. Discovery phase
Before you start the development, consider taking part in so-called discovery phase. A successful discovery phase will help you rule out the majority of risks connected to software development and outsourcing. It provides you with details about the target market and audience of your product, objectives, scope, primary features and measurable deliverables of the development. You can read more about the discovery phase in the post Why Discovery Phase Is Essential For Startups?.
5. MVP
Building an MVP first is one of the best ways to reduce risk, get the highest investment return and improve the time-to-market. An MVP is a version of a product with limited features that is later released to a smaller audience in order to gather feedback and further improve the final product. Sounds great, right? So go check out the article MVP App Development | The Art Of Building A Product That Will Sell.
Summary
As team outsourcing becomes increasingly popular, it is critical to analyze individual needs and determine which form would be more advantageous for a particular organization or project before deciding on one.
Team augmentation is typically more cost-effective for companies that already have software development experience and only require the assistance of one or a few specific team members. Development Teams outsourcing is most practical for companies from other industries that do not employ IT specialists yet want technical help.
If you are still undecided which one is best for your business then ask the experts. Get in touch with the experts at Selleo for a detailed session. We can guide you to decide the best for your business and provide you with an exceptionally professional and highly skillful team. Contact us Now!
