Having the Right People is More Important Than Having a Traditionally Picture Perfect Team

It’s a common misconception in software development that in order to build a piece of quality software, it’s necessary to have a certain number of developers who are at different ranks and levels, each specializing in specific areas. 

While this might be true for the 90s and early 2000s, the world of custom software development has changed so much that the old-world method of creating teams will only result in reduced software delivery cycles, potential delays, and sunk cost spending.

What matters more in 2020 is having the right people. With widespread industry shortages, it's easier to employ the services of multiple organizations and create organizational teams than a fully internal cross-functional team.

The New Era of Cross-Organizational Teams

Under a cross-functional approach, a software development process can look something like this:

The steps required from start to finish involve many departments and teams, and the software development flow is expected to move in a linear process. Under normal circumstances, we would find the people for this kind of cross-functional team from within the organization. While this worked well a few decades ago, when the world was much slower and there wasn’t a severe shortage in skilled developers across different levels, internal cross-functional teams haven't adapted well to the fast-paced requirements caused by competitors, new technologies, and fast-paced consumer demands.

Many of us fall into the trap of thinking we need to hire everyone required to follow this flow. Why? Because that's how things have always been done - but that doesn't necessarily mean it's the most efficient or effective method for your requirements and modern software development delivery.

This can end up costing your business unnecessarily. But what does the 'new' approach to software development and adaptive agile team organization look like?

For many, it starts with cross-organizational teams.

Why Cross-Organizational Teams Will Benefit Your Software Product

The new cross-organizational team structure segments the software development process and flows across multiple organizations. Sometimes, it involves a third part which includes collaborating with an intermediary who talks directly to your company.

While this may sound strange, against today's needs and standards, it's more commonplace than you think. In part, this is because there are organizations that specialize in a particular area, and rather than getting into the business of that specialization, you outsource the task.

At times that task sits in the middle of a workflow, meaning that you are engaging and expecting two third parties to communicate with one another. While this may sound like a pending disaster, with good management and collaboration tools, cross-organizational teams can work as smoothly and as completely as an inhouse one.

While a cross-functional team often focuses on the skill set of different teams that make up the modern software development process, cross-organizational teams take it one step further and disperse these skill sets through multiple organizations.

What Does Cross-Organizational Collaboration Look Like?

The major advantage when you use cross-organizational teams is that you're no longer tasked with finding the right people for your software projects. Instead, a collaboration of multiple parties from different organizations fill in your knowledge gaps, leaving you open to focus on your business domain. With approximately a 1.5 million shortage for computer science related jobs in the United States of America, sometimes it just works out better for your organization to tap into the personnel and resources that another has already trained and curated.

Cross-organizational collaboration across multiple third parties is a more oiled process than it was a few years ago. In part, the rapid movement and growth in specialized areas has led to companies utilizing the different types of expertise.

However, things can quickly fall apart if you're not careful. In a way, hiring a specialized company is like hiring an employee - they have to be able to integrate into your team, or else you can end up with a lot of conflict and delays. Companies that have worked together before and know how each other work tend to produce better results.

You also need an authoritative controller that deals with the flow of work and ensures that everything is working smoothly. Clear goals and outcomes are required, with coordinated agendas that fit with each company, their culture, mindset, output speed and adaptability. This authoritative controller may be from the business, who act as a coordinator for the project, or someone like us who are skilled in providing software development outputs and managing the integration of third parties into a cross-organizational collaborative setting.

What We Do

At SRG, we're more than just a team of developers. We manage, create custom software applications, and provide solutions to your business needs. Our organic agile process makes us highly adaptable, and our long history in remote development and communication space makes us more skilled than others who are just catching on.

Whatever your needs - MVP to scale, or Go-To-Market software solutions, talk to us today to kick start fulfilling your business software needs.

Co-authored by:

Dave Wesley ~ President, SRG
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Aphinya Dechalert ~ Marketing Communications, SRG
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