Last year Gartner named digital transformation and accelerated use of technologies the leading trends of the modern business world for the upcoming years. So it is not a surprise that numerous companies worldwide now seriously consider custom software development. And while some of them already have their in-house development teams that include all necessary technicians, others struggle with finding the right technical partner to augment their small teams that may lack certain relevant experience or skills. 

Therefore we decided to share our own experience and knowledge on effective team extension. In this post, we will compare team extension model with other cooperation models, highlight the main benefits of this development approach, and provide you with some valuable tips. Ready to delve into this topic? Then let’s get started! 

Main types of cooperation models 

To begin with, let’s discuss what an extended development team does and then compare this cooperation model with other no less popular ones – managed and dedicated team. Team extension focuses on not just a short-term project-based but rather on long-lasting partnership and cooperation between your team of technicians and the hired specialists from an offshore development company. 

Although different companies offer different approaches to team extension, there are three key pillars of this model that are always preserved. 

#1 Your team is augmented

This extended team model implies that hired specialists only augment your team and not replace it completely. The main goal of such a team is to fill in all skill- and knowledge-related gaps your on-shore team may experience. By being a so-called single development unit, software developers from both in-house and remote team focus on the result and deliver the solution to meet all your needs and requirements. They can also provide all necessary maintenance services once your solution is released.

#2 Both teams equally share responsibilities

Both in-house and offshore software developers will work on your entire project, handle all development challenges and risks, and are equally responsible for the end result. They establish effective communication, participate in all development stages, schedule all necessary meetings and provide you with progress reports. 

#3 You have control over your project 

Your CTO or Project Manager can coordinate and supervise all processes and make sure that all software developers stick to the plan, preserve deadlines, and do exactly what they are supposed to. 

And now let’s get back to comparing extended team with dedicated, managed and outsourced ones. We’ve already said that in case you choose an extended development team, you will stay in charge of product development and team management. But what we’ve forgotten to mention is that this model is suitable for projects that require a bigger team and you need to be able to scale very quickly. 

When to use team extension services?

By now you may be wondering whether a team extension model is really a perfect fit for your project and company. Well, we can say that you can extract the most benefit out of this cooperation only if you already have your own cohesive in-house team of developers. And if you would like to enrich your team with extra hands or new talents, then team extension is for you. 

There are also some more common cases when companies and startups should take advantage of team extension model. They are the following: 

• Your project requires expertise or knowledge that your team members don’t have. 
• Necessary talents can be found on the local software development market but their rates seem unreasonable.
• You are building a non-typical project using new technologies and want to delegate some development aspects to other experts to keep your in-house team focused on other crucial tasks.
• You require seamless integration of development specialists at any stage of your software development lifecycle. 
• You plan to expand and improve your project in future using newer technologies. 
• The project is big and complex and you lack extra hands to speed up the development. 
• You struggle to find and hire the right technicians within the set timeframe and budget.
• You have a small team and strict deadlines when your project needs to be ready. 

As you can see from the cases below and our real examples, team extension can help you streamline and boost all development processes and save much time and a lot of resources. It is understandable that you still may have some doubts, so to dispel all of them, let’s discuss the evidential benefits of team extension.

Top 6 benefits of extended team model 

Thanks to the extended team model, you can get some extra hands for your team easily, delegate software development processes to experienced professionals, and get a high-quality product released on time and within the specified budget. 

Believe it or not, but these are not all of the advantages you can get if you decide to extend your team. Here are some more benefits you definitely need to know about to make a right final choice: 

Our guide on extended development team integration

Once you’ve selected a vendor for your team augmentation, it is time to think about proper integration of the extended development team into your core team. To integrate new  members into all processes, you need to complete certain steps. And as usual, everything starts with analysis and planning which are followed by the next actions: 

Define what specialists you need 

Before team integration, you need to spend some time on pre-planning. First of all, you need to think about the scope of your project and define the main roles. And secondly, you need to define what technicians are missing and what part of the project should be delegated to them. 

Perhaps, you may need some assistance with pre-planning – in this case you can contact the service provider directly. For example, our Business Analyst will help you with your extended team composition and selection of developers of necessary qualification. We can analyze your tech department needs and put together a team able to meet them.

Set clear requirements and goals

After the pre-planning, you need to discuss your project, ideas, functional and non-functional requirements with your vendor. Together, you will be able to define your project goals and key performance indicators for your extended development team. Based on these two aspects, you will be able to evaluate the work of your team in future. 

You can also ask our Business Analyst to help you with market research, writing of specifications, or any other technical documentation you may need for your project. It’s a common practice, especially if you do not have your in-house specialists for that. 

Complete candidate screening 

As soon as you have formulated all your project requirements and got specifications, you can proceed with selecting suitable candidates to augment your team. The developers you choose should be proficient in required technologies and possess all necessary tech and soft skills to cooperate with your team members.

With our team you can save a lot of time, since we can help you pick developers that will become a valuable addition to your team. Our software development team has software engineers of middle and senior qualification who worked on lots of projects. 

We know what the specialists from our development team are capable of, so we will definitely suggest you the most suitable candidate for your project. You can hire: 

• Business Analysts;
• DevOps;
• Web developers (who work with PHP, Node.js, Python, and many more);
• Mobile developers (specialists that crate native and cross-platform solutions using Java, Kotlin, Swift and Flutter);
• UI/UX designers; 
• Front-end coders (who work with JavaScript, Angular, React, Vue.js);
• Quality Assurance specialist (experienced in manual and automated testing of solutions);
• Scrum Masters (who perform project and team management using all necessary tools).

Our main tech expertise includes but not limited to the following technologies: 

Whatever app our developers create, their goal is to make it work for years. Therefore, they are always guided by the key principles of development process and the latest trends. They preserve high coding standards, perform thorough code review and version control. Security is also our number one priority, therefore, we follow rules and standards provided by OWASP and make sure that key industrial standards are preserved as well.

After you’ve completed screening and selected candidates for your project, you will need to complete technical interviews and soft skills evaluation. Our team will help you with that so you will definitely end up having all necessary technicians to expand your team and begin working on your solution as soon as possible. 

Start team integration process 

The onboarding is probably one of the most important steps of team extension. It is necessary to make sure that hired specialists are fully integrated in all processes and are ready to work and follow the lead of your project manager. 

Here are some tips from GBKSOFT on how you can make team extension and integration seamless: 

• always have all communication channels opened and available at any time;
• use time and progress tracking tools;
• don’t forget about project reports;
• sync-up your in-house and extended development teams so that the latter can be up to date with your team practices, approach, methodology, and even corporate culture; 
• equally share responsibilities between in-house and extended team members to keep everyone motivated and involved;
• schedule kick-off, weekly, problem-solving and feedback meetings to unite both teams. 

Integration of the extended team can be a little bit challenging but you should know that you are not on your own. For example, our team is always ready to step in and handle any issues you may face while uniting two teams. 

Why choose our team extension company 

We have already described how we help our clients with extended team integration. And now we’d like to point out some more advantages our outsourcing company offers. And the first one would be the usage of the RACI matrix. This helps our team and software engineers to clearly define and document all project roles and responsibilities. 

It’s not a secret that the software development success depends on knowing who is going to be responsible and accountable, and whose role is to consult and inform others. RACI matrix maximizes chances of project success and makes the development process more transparent and understandable. If you want to take a closer look at the example of the RACI matrix we use, you can download it right here. 

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As our client, you will be provided not only with the RACI matrix but also with a detailed communication plan. While creating a communication plan, we specify who will be your direct contact person, what kind of documentation and reports you will receive, what meetings you will participate in and how often they will happen. We also use convenient direct communication tools to keep you constantly updated. Here is how that communication plan looks like: 

As you can see, everything is quite clear and in case you have any questions you know to what person you can address them. Our communication plan always adds transparency and flexibility to the cooperation between your team and ours. 

When you hire our software developers, you can be sure that you get specialists that offer perfect price/quality ratio. The rates of our development specialists differ depending on their seniority. But, in general, the hourly rates of our dedicated development team would be the following:

Team member	Hourly rates
Business Analyst	$32-49
Designer	$34-47
Mobile developers	$30-57
Web developers	$34-62
Front-end specialists	$26-34
QA specialists	$22-39
DevOps	$38
Project Manager	$32-57

The prices are very general, so if you have a project in mind and need this or that team member, it is better to consult with us and ask about the rates directly.

Apart from the reasonable rates and all things mentioned above, we offer more team extension benefits that our clients already appreciated. Our developers augmented many in-house teams and developed projects for fintech, real estate, food and beverages, hospitality, manufacturing  and many more other companies.

We have received only positive feedback so far from our clients. They really like to use our team extension services and here is what they highlighted as our main pros:

• Scalability – the team that was selected could be easily expanded or narrowed without influencing project deadlines or cost. 
• Focus on end goals – our specialists demonstrated total involvement in the software development delegated to them and were able to troubleshoot any arising issues easily. 
• Cost efficiency –our clients paid for the actual hours specialists spent on their projects. 
• Huge talent pool – all our clients had 100+ middle and senior-level tech specialists at their disposal able to do exactly what was required. 

To conclude 

Any project idea needs a cohesive team of software developers to make it a reality. These days, many companies have their own IT team. But sometimes it’s not enough. Sometimes you need to hire new team members, people with specific knowledge and technical skills to accomplish complex software development. And there is no better way to augment your team than using extended team services.

Extended team model can become your magic wand that is able to deliver the desired solution, save your costs, reduce time of hiring process and boost your time-to-market. All you need to do is select the right vendor, sign a contract, integrate extra tech members in your in-house team and let them do their best job.