Your development team has stagnated, and productivity has slowed to a crawl. Why is this? Is it because of an internal issue or something external? Are you suffering from attrition, or is it a deeper issue within the department or company?
The truth is, how you form and manage your development teams will have a profound and direct impact on how successful they are. It’s absolutely essential that you build them from the ground up, with certain ideas and ideologies in mind. Otherwise, they will run into a wall, preventing them from being productive and successful development teams.
So, what are those key considerations you should take into account when creating your development team? These are 12 considerations that every business leader should have an eye on when either first putting together the department or adjusting it as needed.
Let’s dive in and see how you can ensure the development teams you hire and/or manage will have the best shot at success.
Why Is It Important to Have a Successful Development Process?
A strong development process is critical for your organization. When you have a solid, capable team in place, you will enjoy numerous benefits, and they’re not just limited to the technical realm. You will also see increased revenue, streamlined operations, a more engaged workforce, and customer satisfaction.
12 Factors in Creating a Successful Development Team
#1 Understanding of Business Issues
When push comes to shove, the end goal of your development teams is that everything they do meets the needs of your business. Every decision, every project, and every line of code is made in such a way that it is in line with the goals of not just the project at hand but the company as a whole. That means you and/or your management team must make sure those teams understand the business issues that affect your company and your sector. Don’t leave those teams guessing. Instead, place these issues front and center so your teams are always aware of the big-picture goals.
#2 Domain Knowlege
Domain knowledge is expertise in a specific and specialized field. Your development teams must have a solid understanding of their domain—what they do, what they were hired to do, and how to complete their part of the project. Although domain knowledge, which is the opposite of general knowledge, can lead to stakeholders working in silos, it’s absolutely critical that your developers completely understand their domain and how it applies to the project as a whole.
#3 Diverse Backgrounds
Successful development depends on innovation. Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) are essential for development teams because they bring together different backgrounds, experiences, thoughts, and perspectives and lead to greater creativity and stronger critical thinking. DEI also means better collaboration and a more engaged workforce, both of which contribute to an improved development process.
#4 Technical Ability
Along with domain knowledge, your development teams must also have sound technical ability. This isn’t just about hiring developers who know every aspect of Java but also how to use related frameworks to build applications, how to facilitate frontend or backend development, how to integrate with databases, and how to use Integrated Development Environments (IDEs) for more efficient software engineering.
So, not only do your developers have to have a strong ability to write code, but they also need to understand how to use other types of technology to be more productive. Not every developer or team member will come in as an expert on all technologies, but with a good onboarding and training process in place, you can help your professionals cultivate and improve these critical skills.
#5 Scalability
This is not just about your team’s ability to create scalable applications but also their ability to scale themselves. As your business continues to grow, you will eventually need to hire more developers to keep up with demand and the need to remain agile. When that happens, your development team needs to be able to quickly assimilate those new developers into the workflow.
Without the ability to scale, your development teams will quickly stagnate and your business will suffer.
#6 Engagement
Those teams of engineers must be engaged with the project. That doesn’t necessarily mean they must act as cheerleaders and champions for the project, but they must show an active interest in the process and be fully committed to its successful completion. If you find developers who aren’t actively engaged, they will cause bottlenecks and frustration within the team, with managers, and with customers.
When developers check out of a project and start “phoning it in,” you will have a problem on your hands. Because of that, it’s important to periodically check in on developer engagement. One way to improve engagement is to have an open-door policy, encouraging team members to come to their leader with questions, concerns, or anything else they want to discuss.
#7 Questions and Answers
On that note, your development teams should constantly be asking questions. Always. From start to finish, those engineers should never hesitate to pose questions to designers, managers, other developers, COOs, CIOs, and CEOs. At the same time, it’s imperative that those being asked the questions have the answers. If your development teams are frequently met with “I don’t know,” they’ll stop asking questions. When developers stop asking questions, bad things can happen to a project.
#8 Teamwork
This one is a bit on the obvious side. However, it’s not just important that your development team displays teamwork among themselves, but among every department that is directly or indirectly affected by their work. If your teams refuse to play nicely with operations, IT, PR, marketing, HR, and staff members, they cannot be effective and/or productive.
In order to build trust and foster collaboration, work on making your environment more approachable and friendly. Make it clear what everyone’s role is and how each individual contributes to the team and a more successful development process. During onboarding, you might pair a newbie with a more seasoned employee to show them the ropes and help them get to know the team.
#9 Communication
Along with teamwork, your development teams absolutely must be able to effectively communicate with one another and with those outside of the team. Communication isn’t limited to the likes of Slack, Asana, ProofHub, Trello, email, or text. Your developers need to be able to stand in front of a group and effectively communicate their ideas, progress, and intent. Without the ability to communicate well, your development teams are going to struggle to work with other departments or third-party offshore entities.
#10 Automation
To seriously keep up with the competition and demand, your development teams are going to have to add automation into the mix. By including automation in the software development lifecycle, you offload many manual and repetitive tasks into automated systems, which guarantees those tasks will be more reliable, repeatable, and efficient. Without automation, your teams are going to struggle to keep up with the constant demand for bigger, better, and faster deployments.
#11 Documentation
Unfortunately, documentation is one of the last things your development teams are going to worry about. That’s problematic, especially as developers move from one team to another, or you have to hire to replace those who’ve left. Without proper documentation for apps and the development process, anyone new to the team is going to have trouble getting up to speed.
If your development teams keep solid documentation (for their process and within their code), any developer should be able to drop in and pick up as though they were there all along.
#12 Strong Leadership
A strong development team starts with strong leadership. The leader sets the tone. Some managers don’t come from technology backgrounds, and if that’s the case with you, it’s important to rely on the recommendations your tech professionals offer. Even if you do come from a development background, it’s still important to welcome feedback and input because this will prove critical to a better development process and results.
Every Development Team Is Unique
Putting together, keeping, and managing a successful development team doesn’t have to be an insurmountable challenge. If you keep these considerations in mind from the beginning, your teams will be effective and productive. But don’t look at this list as the be-all-end-all because every team and every business is unique. Take this list and mold it to perfectly fit the needs of your company, and you shouldn’t have any problems keeping these teams running smoothly and successfully.
