What You Should Know About A Dedicated Team Model

In today's technology market, a breakthrough product is not simply based on detailed specifications but also on many other factors. Besides, time and humans are two key factors in deciding the success of a product. After realizing the limitations of classic outsourcing models, there exists a need to find an advanced kind of cooperation. That led to the birth of the Dedicated Team Model (DTM).

This blog will define a dedicated team model, its advantages, and disadvantages, and how it differs from its competitors – Fixed Price and Time & Material model. Let’s explore!

A dedicated team model offers an advanced kind of cooperation

1. What is a dedicated team model?

A dedicated team model is a term in software development businesses that refers to a relationship between a service provider and a client when the former supplies software development professionals to the client on a long-term basis. It is one of the most popular collaboration models, along with the Fixed Price (FP) and Time & Material (T&M) models.

In a specialized project structure, companies often appoint project managers and key personnel to work full-time and continuously until the project is finished.
Project officers often work in an environment that is physically isolated from other company activities.

The main purpose of cooperation is to have you attain a highly skilled team of developers working as your in-house staff. Moreover, it is not essential to use special software and hardware to implement the project since both are supplied by the vendor.

DTM would be a business model where both parties come to an agreement on the course load and project requirements with a set number of hours, and the outsourcing vendors would be IT specialists who meet the client’s expectations and remain focused on their projects. The customer has control over the project and the team’s continuous improvement, whereas the performer has complete control over talent acquisition and provides administrative support.

Starting a partnership with a dedicated development team helps start-up companies get a well-coordinated independent nature. They would not leave the on-going projects even if there was something wrong. Bringing on a DTM with invaluable experience will result in a better outcome than recruiting people separately. Your companies will get larger in the future and achieve more competitive benefits than other competitors in the market.

2. Is a Dedicated Team Model the Best Choice for Me?

The specific requirements of the project, the statement of work on development, integration, or test execution, the degree of certainty of the requirements, and the customer’s willingness to participate in direct control of the project team all significantly affect the models of cooperation with a developer. In this section, we will look at what projects should use DTM:

• If the requirements or demands from the client's side are not accurate and might not be clearly interpreted,
• If, at the early stages, the project is still in the mood of “raw” and there are not sufficient details and/or information to make an estimate of the final cost in an accurate way,
• When a client has a continuous stream of assignments or developments, but they are disseminated in terms of time and cannot be told ahead of time,
• If the performance extends over a number of months or even years, or if the scope of the campaign is undecided,
• When a customer needs an advanced level of changeability or an openness to change, they usually choose DTM in the development process;
• If the client has a need for more uninterrupted management over the process or provides definite resources, that will have an effect on the execution of their campaign.
• When the project is related to developing markets, recently developed technologies, or untested equipment.

3. Who Will Need a Dedicated Team Model?

A product owner or technical manager could find DTM useful for their projects if those projects need flexibility in assigning tasks and obtaining the outcome quickly.

For example,

1. There is a limitation of time for the product owner to establish or to scale up a development team.
2. The technical manager must take charge of a number of projects at the same time.
3. There is a strong desire to reduce technical debt, but there is no opportunity to put development on hold.
4. The current group of software developers is unable to cope, and trying to dismiss them will make the situation worse.

Some companies or startups with the same problems could enjoy the DTM if they employed a dedicated development team.

4. The Benefits of a Dedicated Team Model?

You could gain the following benefits from DTM:

• High sufficiency for complex, long-term projects or for projects that could not be thought through to the end. For projects lasting more than 12 months, DTM will accumulate sufficient experience to get the tasks done faster than the groups of developers who come and leave;
• Complete control over the employment, activities, and supervision of the dedicated team members;
• A greater rate of communication and management on a daily basis via using web tools; and avoiding the loss of immeasurable information when such information is transferred from the client to the developers;
• Flexible approach, fully foreseeable expenses, and obtaining a steady financial figure in budgetary control. In other models (FP and T&M), there is no steadiness in the payment amount and expenses;
• Workload and volume are subject to change, and change requests can be submitted at any time;
• Help the client resolve the issues that require technical expertise in-depth. As a result, the dedicated team members could become highly skilled developers.
• The client could avoid the risk of income loss or other problems that many other models have: (i) force majeure situations when the service contract terminates before the agreed-upon time or (ii) difficult communication of the team during development;
• The companies that have launched the DTM effectively could (i) assign the resources (including time and human) between their projects without dividing the project teams into many small groups and (ii) give thought to the scope of work, the matter of greatest importance in terms of time and human resources, upon establishing the project team;
• When team members work with the client in person at some point of the project, they could have a deep understanding of the client’s expectations and clearly see the main objective for success;
• If there are some needs for expansion from the client, it is easier for them to scale it up by using a DTM because it helps cut down on the time for employment of new team members;
• Members of a dedicated team must not only stick together, but also be reliable. The members of DTM need to demonstrate a greater level of personal reliability and the highest standard of teamwork in preparation for joining the project.

5. The Disadvantages of a Dedicated Team Model?

A dedicated team model is inefficient for short-term projects

However, there are some disadvantages to DTM that you should know about before choosing it for your project:

• It is inefficient for short-term projects and is more expensive than other models (FP and T&M).
• The formation of a team may necessitate the use of time resources and a delay at the start of the project, while it is in the development stage. If using the T&M model, the assignment could be started in the near future.
• There would be fewer chances for dedicated team members to research deeply in other fields outside of their expertise in the project.
• During the development, the client must be hard-working in exchanging information about the project or participating in discussions, and they must contribute to the project’s control.

Conclusion

In sum, you should choose the partnership models in IT depending generally on the kind of your project and the predictability of resources for the project (time, human, and costs). As said above, for long-term projects and if there is no clear direction for your project at the early stage of the project, DTM is one of the best choices for your consideration. DTM is easy to change because of its adaptability in relation to the scope of tasks, or make adjustments to the expenses and other resources.

As such, you should not hesitate to think about the DTM upon developing the project team if the above-mentioned problems are the same for your project.

If you are still unsure about whether the Dedicated Team Model is the best choice for you, please do not hesitate to contact Groove Technology’s team of professionals. We are a team of talented professional developers, testers, and business consultants committed to providing nothing beyond the brightest. We will give you further advice for your consideration.

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