How to Accomplish Team Goals for Staff Augmented Projects

Do you need a way to staff a temporary project effectively? You should consider implementing something called staff augmentation, as it increases flexibility, reduces costs, and allows your in-house team to meet tight deadlines.

Some companies opt to make their team augmented themselves, while others recruit staff augmentation services to simplify the process. In any case, this specialized type of outsourcing will introduce qualified (yet temporary) full-time employees and elevate your company to the next level.

Read on to learn more about this technique and how you can implement it to your company's advantage.

Why Choose Staff Augmentation Over Other Methods?

All businesses are complex in their own way. They need to complete arduous tasks that require varying skill levels, and some companies may not have the resources on hand to accomplish the necessary work.

This complication is a normal part of the business cycle. But, you need to know how to tackle it head-on.

Subcontracting work may initially come to mind. Under this method, the workers aren't employees — instead, they work for themselves.

Project outsourcing is another alternative, but using an outsourcing company can cause the core business to lose a lot of autonomy over the work in question.

Instead, more companies, especially those in the engineering and IT industries, turn to staff augmentation. Through an analysis of its current staff, a company will determine which additional skill sets it needs. Then, it will hire temporary tech professionals and other employees to accomplish its goals.

Companies favor a staff augmentation model because it allows them to capitalize on existing resources but add what they need to meet their goals.

Below, you can explore tips on refining your company's staff augmentation plan once it's in place.

Distinguish Your Objectives from Your Tactics

When you start to explore staff augmentation as a possibility for your company, you must first complete some planning.

Understand that your objectives and tactics are separate concepts. Your objectives refer to the goals you hope to accomplish the project requirements in question. On the other hand, your tactics are the actions you'll take to achieve your objectives.

All team members should understand the objectives and tactics that are relevant to them.

We recommend using the Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) method to track your company's objectives and tactics. The OKRs method breaks down objectives and tactics comprehensively, making it simple to track your project management.

The objectives are qualitative descriptions of what your in-house and remote teams should achieve. They should be to the point, inspirational, and motivating. You should also set individual goals that align with the overall objectives.

Moving onto the second part of the OKRs method — the key results. Key results measure a team's progress toward a specific objective. Key results need to be data-based to leave little room for guesswork.

Develop a DevOps Culture to Optimize Your Results

A DevOps culture refers to the practices that combine IT operations and software development.

This culture's goal is to reduce the life cycle of the system's development and deliver high-quality software continuously. It can also relate to product development and the provision of specific services.

Operating under a refined DevOps culture will prevent hiccups and align your team, which is essential when you have an augmented staff.

Depending on the nature of your business, you may improve production speed, automate or refine certain techniques, or create more homogenous processes that encourage productivity.

Explore some practices you can try to stimulate your company's DevOps culture and perfect your outsourcing strategy:

Process Automation

Improve the quality of your company's software by automating specific processes. One of the most efficient things you can do as part of this tip is to automate software testing. As a result, in-house and remote developers can show that the product works like it's supposed to. They can pinpoint coding errors, make the necessary adjustments, and improve overall productivity in the workplace.

Version Control

Use version control to facilitate collaboration among multiple developers, no matter where they're working from.

With version control, developers can build and test software and mobile apps from anywhere and correct integration mistakes efficiently. As a project manager, you can seamlessly divide programming tests among your full-time employees and ensure no stone is left unturned.

Infrastructure as Code (IaC)

IaC is especially relevant for large-scale projects, but any size project will benefit from this method. It involves a team of developers implementing system resources in predictable ways while minimizing human error.

Establish Communication Standards

Even after you brief every team member on their goals and roles, you shouldn't leave them to fend for themselves. An essential part of making your staff augmented is establishing communication standards.

Coming up with your own methodology may prove to be time-consuming and ineffective on a long-term basis. Luckily, you don't have to. Check out the SCRUM methodology, which you can use to meet your team's project requirements more efficiently.

Sprint Planning

Sprint Planning occurs at the beginning of each sprint, a cycle of time that lasts between one week and one month. The entire team chooses the specific tasks that they'll work on. Overall, the priority of Sprint Planning is to align the business and product development elements.

Daily Scrums

A Daily Scrum happens once a day and lasts for around fifteen minutes. During this daily meeting, the development team discusses what they did in the last 48 hours to contribute to the sprint goal and any issues.

Sprint Review

A Sprint Review occurs after each sprint. The development team, the product owner, and the stakeholders all meet to oversee a final product's inspection and adaptation.

Sprint Retrospective

A Sprint Retrospective follows a Sprint Review. At this time, everyone will discuss what went well (and what didn't) during the spring. This step serves to remind the company of its path toward continuous improvement.

Grooming or Refinement

The Grooming phase will ensure that the project owner will always be on schedule when preparing a development team's task list. To maintain an adequate preparation level on a long-term basis, the project owner should hold a refinement meeting at least once a week.

Ready to Reach Your Goals?

Are you ready to build the best team possible? Get in touch with us to learn more about our staff augmentation services. Our team is ready to help you secure short-term or full-time employees. We'll send over someone that embraces your company culture and is eager to dive straight into project development.

Contact us today for the staff augmentation services you need at your business!