Team Augmentation is the most crucial strategy to keep up with the rising global demand for the software development market. This includes IT team augmentation, technical team augmentation, and augmentation for software engineering. Team augmentation involves adding experts in the field from outside the organization or corporation.
The estimated net worth of the software development market size was 336.86 billion in 2023, and it will only rise moving forward. So the question is, what strategies do companies use moving forward to keep up with this global demand? The answer is simple: software development team augmentation.
Are you considering outsourcing software development? You are not alone. A staggering 92% of IT companies spend about 700 billion on outsourcing. But what if there was another solution to this expenditure? The answer is staff augmentation.
Staff augmentation will help you cut costs and quickly meet market demands and business requirements. You won’t need to invest in training programs, and you can easily skip the tedious recruitment process! Let’s take you through the basics of software development team augmentation. Is this the best way forward for your company?
What is Software Team Augmentation?
To put it simply, team augmentation is often affectionately dubbed “outstaffing.” This is a specific outsourcing model where you hire contractors to strengthen your existing in-house team. Team Augmentation is crucial during peak season, or when you have big projects lined up and your team is filled to the brim.
When any software development company needs staff augmentation, they hire from the best nearshore or global development talent by purchasing their hours. This means, the workers will have to be ready to work on an on-demand basis.
For instance, let’s say your IT company needs to launch an app during summer, to help track people’s health. Summer is the peak season for getting into shape, which means your technical team will already be loaded with work.
What you can do, is implement technical team augmentation. This means you will be hiring X amount of IT staff members by purchasing their hours. So you can hire them for Y amount of hours each week, and they will help your existing team in making the app come to fruition.
If you need an extension, you can easily request more augmentation. This will result in hiring more help or purchasing more hours for the existing augmentation team.
Benefits and Characteristics of Software Team Augmentation
It’s an on-demand service. Project management staff augmentation only happens when your company requires it.
Projects are run temporarily. Each project will have its own needs and schedule. Team augmentation allows you to plan projects and get augmented team members on a case-by-case basis. Project management staff augmentation doesn’t happen all year round. It will only happen when your project and your company need more members in the team temporarily.
They are available on an hourly basis for as long as the project requires. You can purchase more hours for team augmentation if you need.
You can always go back to the global talent pool and request more hours. There is an initial hour limit that both parties agree upon. However, software development team augmentation isn’t rigid. If you need more help for an extended period, you can always request it. The hourly rate will remain the same, but the total hours will be increased. You can also request more members to beef up your team!
Your costs will only include paying for the talent. You don’t have to recruit separately. This means team augmentation is more cost-effective than hiring more members for your software development team.
One of the biggest drawbacks of hiring people is training them from the ground up. Team augmentation easily circumvents this problem. You don’t have to set training programs from scratch. Team augmentation allows you to work with people who are already experts in their fields. This means there will be no additional costs for setting up training programs.
You will have a diverse pool of talented individuals to choose from.
Hiring happens locally. However, team augmentation happens globally. Since you will be choosing from a global talent pool, you will come across people from all sorts of niche expertise. Whether you need your software engineering team augmented or your IT team, you will find help.
You don’t have to entirely restructure your existing team. Team augmentation fits perfectly within your company’s current workflow and structure.
Outsourcing can be troublesome because it shifts the entire dynamics of your existing team. Staff augmentation engineering doesn’t require that. Staff augmentation engineering only requires you to put in the agreed-upon rate. Your current team can stay the same, and the augmented members will be structured within your existing team dynamics. There doesn’t need to be an entire team overhaul!
Team augmentation offers flexible hourly rates with faster project completion times.
Some projects take longer than others to be completed. This is why team augmentation is so beneficial. Maybe you need software built within two months, but you don’t have enough software engineers on your team. Maybe you need an app developed for Christmas, but your current team is completely loaded already. These are scenarios where team augmentation is the only solution.
Having more members in your team temporarily can help you complete your projects faster, save you a lot of money, and help you hit targets better.
What are the 5 stages of successful project management augmentation?
1. Having Definite Requirements
You need to be able to define the requirements for what you are looking for. Technical team augmentation will look different from software development team augmentation. You will need to look for specific software development skills for software dev team augmentation.
2. Qualify Candidates
Whether you are looking to bulk your project management team or your IT team, you will have to sort out the candidates from the talent pool. Team augmentation includes outstaffing from outside your company. This means you will have to carefully vet the candidates.
3. Conduct Thorough Interviews and Background Checks
This is standard procedure for any team augmentation. There will have to be thorough background checks on everyone you are considering.
4. Introduce The Best Candidates
When you are outstaffing, you will already be picking from the best talent pools. This means the candidates will all be experts in the field you are looking for. However, certain software development candidates will be a better fit than others.
5. Integrate Into The Team
Now that you have your pool of software developers, your software development team augmentation is complete. Now you will have to integrate them within your existing work structure. This will help your project be completed much faster.
What is the difference between automation and augmentation?
Automation means completely removing the human element from work. For example: using machines for products in factories, rather than having humans manufacture those products. However, when it comes to recruitment, both augmentation and automation have their roles to play.
Staff Team Augmentation helps with decision making
While automation replaces human jobs, staff augmentation allows for collaborative work between different teams in the same company. Your project management team and technical team can work together more cohesively through augmentation. Automation, human decision-making, and augmentation enhance it.
It’s important to think of technical team augmentation as using AI only to support talent acquisition professionals to make their work easier. This also brings enormous benefits to the company.
Augmentation and automation are both important parts of recruiting. However, they operate differently and are needed in separate areas. Resume screening is an important part of any company. To grow your business, you need to hire a pool of talented individuals.
The screening process starts in an automated way. The basic qualification checks of all individuals who submitted their resumes are carried out by automation. There are also automated emails that need to be sent. However, staff team augmentation is the next part.
The candidates have to be short-listed without bias and then filtered to make sure they fit with the team perfectly. Humans are more prone to biased decision-making. That’s why AI augmentation can be a beneficial tool when thinking about overall software development team augmentation.
What is enhancement vs talent augmentation?
| Enhancement | Talent Augmentation |
|---|---|
| Team enhancement is a tool used by companies to improve the quality of existing teams. While this is a good strategy, it’s not foolproof. There are ways of technical team enhancement. For instance, you can retrain your current workers to acquire new skills that are crucial for the success of your project. | Talent Augmentation is a tool used by companies to bring in more workforce to existing teams. This is a better way of ensuring quality without compromising time constraints. |
| Additionally, you can take on more complicated projects. Many software development companies use an enhancement to take on larger projects that push the envelope of software development. This can include trying to push out more apps during a specific season or adding features to existing apps. | This is true for augmentation as well. You can take on more complicated projects by bringing in experts who can help you push out apps or add features to existing apps. |
| While enhancement has its own merits, there are potential drawbacks to this as well. The most obvious one is cost. It takes lots of capital to organize training programs for your in-house employees. This takes a large amount of investment. | Talent augmentation on the other hand doesn’t require any of these costs. You don’t have to train people who are already experts. Additionally, once the project is done, you will be left with your remaining team members. It’s a win-win situation for everyone involved! |
What is an example of technical team augmentation in technology?
There are multiple examples and real-life scenarios where software development or technical team augmentation has proven to be beneficial for the company. Let’s take each scenario on a case-by-case basis to analyze how team augmentation is the most beneficial outsourcing model.
If there is a talent gap within your existing team, augmentation is the best possible solution. Let’s say you want to build complicated software, but there aren’t enough software engineers in your team who can pull it off. Software engineering team augmentation will help you bring experts in that field to help you achieve your goal.
Some teams also have an experience gap. You may need professional software developers for specific app development. You can easily bridge that experience gap by outstaffing this work and hiring experts for an hourly rate. This also helps you solve problems that are outside of your team’s expertise. If you lack in-house experience, you can bring in experts for consultation that make up for that lack of experience in your team.
There are also time constraints to keep in mind. Not all projects can be completed in a short amount of time with the resources you have. This is why expanding teams is the most useful solution. However, hiring more people in the company can take up months, if not years. The recruitment process is long and arduous. To avoid the multiple hassles that recruitment brings, team augmentation is the best output.
What is the difference between IT team augmentation and outsourcing?
| Outsourcing | Team Augmentation |
|---|---|
| Outsourcing involves sending projects outside of the company. This means the company relinquishes control over how the project is overseen. Suppose your company wants to make a software X. However, currently, your team is completely overloaded. Or maybe you don’t have the expertise to carry out such a large-scale project. Outsourcing would mean that your company chooses another organization, company Y to complete this task for you. | Team augmentation involves bringing experts from outside within your team and your organizational structure to aid in project completion. Suppose your company is still working on software X. You would reach out to a specific global talent pool and hire several people for a specific number of hours. These members will help with your work until their required hours are over. This is different from outsourcing because the software development project is still under your control. The team is still working under previously established structured conditions. The only difference is, new members have been hired to work in the team. |
| Outsourcing is comparatively more expensive than augmentation. | Augmentation is the most cost-effective way of team building. |
Harms of Staff Team Augmentation
Communication Issues in Dev Team Augmentation
When trying to put together a project management team, not all workers may have offline access to the company. This means, there may be some workers joining remotely. This may be difficult to integrate into your technical team augmentation.
Coordinating a Software Development Team Augmentation Can be Difficult
Coordinating a large augmented team can be difficult. Since development team augmentation requires experts in their fields, there may be international team members. Some people may have language barriers and hence have difficulty communicating.
Technical Team Augmentation Can be Chaotic
When introducing team augmentation, it’s of utmost importance to build and structure the team in an organized way. If there isn’t proper instruction or guidance on how the augmented team will work, it may end up being very chaotic.
Benefits of Software Development Team Augmentation
Global Talent Pool
Having an augmented team gives you access to a global talent pool. Talent augmentation allows you to hire experts in their specific fields from all over the world. This means every possible person you can hire will already bring their A-game to the field of software development! There is nothing to worry about.
Flexibility In Team Augmentation
As we have discussed before, this work is on an on demand basis. When you are going to do staff augmentation engineering, you will already discuss how many hours you are purchasing them for. Since everything is pre-planned, you will have more flexibility in choosing what projects to prioritize.
Cost Reduction
Staff augmentation doesn’t require you to go through a tedious recruitment process. You will be selecting individuals from a global pool of experts. It can be very hectic to look through individual resumes of people you don’t know. It takes time to set up interview questions and surveys. Augmentation allows you to circumvent recruitment entirely!
Cost Reduction on Staff Training
When conducting IT staff augmentation, you will be selecting individuals who are already well-trained experts. Hence, you don’t need to spend anything on in-house training and development programs. Hiring trainers can be expensive. Additionally, budgeting extra time for training when you are already on a time crunch is an added hassle. Thankfully augmentation allows you to completely move past these bottlenecks.
When you are hiring dev team members, you will have to keep in mind some specific practices. You should keep an open mind about listening to experts. They may bring new perspectives to your team that you hadn’t thought of before!
Final Thoughts
Software development team augmentation allows companies to cut costs, take on more complicated projects, and hit software development markets faster.
While there are some problems with augmentation, they can be easily avoided with a few proper techniques. It’s important to always communicate with your augmented team so that everyone feels heard. It’s also equally crucial to instruct the entire restructured team on how to communicate with each other.
Ultimately staff team augmentation is the only way to ensure that your projects get completed with the utmost care that they deserve.
