Thisarticlewas originally published on.cultbyChameera Dulanga.
.cult is a Berlin-based community platform for developers.
Software development is teamwork and having a good team structure is vital for its success.
But, even a tiny misalignment could adversely affect our teams output.
Thats why we should be extra careful when putting a team together.
Why is team structure important?
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Instead, we give more prominence to quality and continuous improvements.
And the team should be capable of producing the desired outcome.
So we need to address the following questions:
2.
Do we have the right environment for them to collaborate?
Does the team know their goals?
Is the team empowered to produce better quality outcomes?
Can the team produce a better outcome than each individual?
We also need to take the budget into account.
You should always have an upper limit to find the right balance for an optimum team structure.
But the question is, How should we decide the perfect team structure?
And some of them youll only identify after the team starts performing.
Lets concentrate on the key factors we have control over when choosing the individuals for a team;
2.
Experience level of the engineers
3.
Cost of running the team (remuneration and other expenses)
1.
One thing you shouldnt do is launch the project with lessdevelopersthan required, even if theyre very talented.
Youll spin up the risk of sacrificing quality and cause more problems in the long run.
However, things get complicated when you oughta decide the structure of the team.
Experience level
The experience level of the engineers directly affects the quality and productivity.
But that doesnt mean we need a team full of highly experienced people.
Remember, we talked about team synergy.
We have to think about the different experience levels available in the team.
Since people work together, they can learn from each other and produce the desired outcome.
Why experience levels affect quality and productivity
Quality cannot be built over a day or two.
It comes with experience.
For example, suppose youre starting a new Java project and looking for a developer.
Also, they wont have the necessary experience on best practices, resulting in higher rework effort.
So in this case go with a developer whos skilled with Java.
All this experience can create a bottleneck if the teams goals and ambitions arent aligned.
Cost of running the team
Software engineering teams are significantly different from teams in other professions.
They can work from remote locations, have flexible working hours, and sharpen their knowledge with continuous learning.
So, if we can utilize these factors, we can look at optimizing the costs involved.
Multiple workplaces
This is also another dimension to think about when managing the costs of software development teams.
However, having multiple workplaces can either increase or reduce the cost of your project.
However, there are few other challenges you should address when making your distributed team effective.
If your team is working in different time zones, its good to have reasonable overlap whenever possible.
This could be achieved by either shifting working hours or having designated time for collaboration.
It will help to align all the team members towards the end goal.
Story by.cult
.cult by Honeypot is a Berlin-based community platform for developers.
