To sign up for our daily email newsletter, CLICK HERE
Once you decide to create a software or application, one of the critical items will be to organize the creation process. The question you will first have to answer is: “Will I use a team of developers from my own company, or will I outsource?”
Choosing one or the other has long-term effects on your organization’s product, cost, and finally, profitability.
In-house development means developing software with the team of experts you already have at your company. You are not getting any external help, and developers are employed by you performing tasks that you assigned.
The reasons why in-house development works are simple, and we will list the most important ones.
Building team from the scratch
With In-house development, you build your team from scratch.
You will fill up positions based on your company’s experience and skill sets to build the product. Paypal and Amazon work with in-house developers, which allows them complete control of the project.
Choosing in-house development doesn’t differ from recruiting permanent staff to organizations. You will also have to go through the process of interviews, and onboarding, to build your own IT team. If your business is strictly focused on creating an IT product, it can be viable to hire in-house.
You choose an in-house development team to work on a specific set of tasks. Every team member must have a particular purpose, whether an expert to fill a niche in the project or a leader who manages and organizes other team members.
Should you focus first on web design or SEO, how will you promote your product – all these questions and dilemmas come up much later.
Creating an in-house team can be a long and grueling process, but everything will work out just fine if you know what you are doing.
Advantages of in-house development
There are several significant benefits to in-house development that are as relevant today as they were before outsourcing:
Full control
You have to train your employees from the ground up, make sure they know how to use the tools at their disposal, and develop software that matches your company’s philosophy.
As long-term company members, in-house developers are aware more of its needs and adapt to those needs. They move from task to task much quicker than any external specialist will.
Cultural fit
Hire an in-house team, and they will work easier sharing the same beliefs and culture. That helps employees integrate effectively into the company, allowing them to add value to their work. If the team members are communicating well, they will not only be happier but more productive too.
Direct communication
Your in-house developers are working directly with you, and the possibility to interact with them face to face is a great advantage. Communication becomes more straightforward and the implementation of unexpected changes faster.
Hand-picked team members
Creating a great app or a feature, such as Windows kiosk mode that many people want to use, takes the whole team.
You will spend much more time finding the right candidates, but hand-picked team members are a far better choice than recruiting outsourcing team members.
This will probably extend the recruitment process but also make it more thorough. As a result, the person you add to your team will undoubtedly be a much better fit for the role you are looking to fill.
In-project expertise
Internal professionals master skills while working on the project you started. Soon they become narrowly focused experts of the highest level. This reduces bugs and problems, and it also means that the support will be efficient, so your business will have all the skills to maintain the product on its own.
Immediate support
When you have deployed a new product, some flaws might show up. With an in-house team, the fixes will be applied without delay. On the other hand, when you lead an outsourced team, the response may be delayed.
You will enjoy full ownership
A reputed development firm keeps you continuously involved in the whole process. When working with an in-house team, you enjoy full ownership and control over every aspect of your product.
As an owner, you will remain aware of each detail, every bit of progress along. You don’t need to check on the deadline as you stay aware of the team’s progress.
When the whole product development process ends, you will put your signature under it and feel fulfilled and satisfied.
Ability to make quick changes
The ability to communicate faster with a team of developers within the same company is much simpler and therefore speeds up the process of potential changes or adding features to the software you are working on.
A faster flow of information also means greater flexibility in all phases of development – planning, documentation, programming, or testing.
For instance, to ensure the efficient and quick work with the documentation, you may use the software to create documents online. It will be a useful tool for any types of businesses and for different corporate processes. You will be able to draft an employment contract when you’re in the process of hiring new members for your team; or you can find the minutes of meetings’ templates that help to keep track of all the important details and decisions made during the specific meeting. Various types of financial documents, tax forms with instructions and guides can also be drafted with the help of online services, which considerably saves time and money for every business.
Disadvantages of software development outside the company
If you were thinking of outsourcing your projects, think again. You will have to deal with some of these common difficulties:
- Security risks – working with external companies can mean a lack of personal communication. As a result, you will need to send sensitive or confidential information to some other channels, and it often seems that the whole process is not protected enough. The amount of trust always depends on the other party, so don’t forget to agree in advance on how you plan to communicate.
If you are afraid that your idea could be stolen, sign a non-disclosure agreement. It could be that it’s your first time dealing with an NDA contract, so before you sign it, make sure to look through a couple of online contract examples. If you are worried about leaking professional information within the company you have chosen to develop software, choose security certificates.
- Communication difficulties – people used to worry that language would be a barrier to contact people on the other side of the world. Still, today most IT specialists use fluent English, and it is no longer a problem. Another obstacle to efficient and fast communication could be a different time zone.
Fortunately, many technologies are available today that allow you to schedule appointments or exchange instant messages (on your mobile phone and your computer), which helps reduce this potential gap.
Organize your in-house team
Making a fantastic team and making sure they are working well together is a long process. Losing time isn’t a luxury any startup can allow, so minimizing the time to build an in-house software development team should be your priority.
Define the roles and responsibilities
Before assembling a software development team, decide on its structure and the primary responsibilities of every team member. Any software development team has specialists that usually include: project managers, UI/UX designers, engineers, scrum masters, etc.
Create project road map
Have you ever thought about successful products and how they reached that success? Behind a successful product, there must be a great idea, but a lot depends on the project management process. If you decide to create a project road map, you will answer questions like where you are going or what risks and challenges are possible through this road.
Take advantage of sprint retrospective meeting
In the sprinting stage, you will be focused on the execution rather than evaluating results or planning. To get better results during your sprints, you will have to organize all the tasks.
A sprint retrospective is a meeting that you held at the end of the sprint. During this meeting, use the sprint retrospective template to reflect on what was done well and what needs to be improved in the last sprint.
Use co-working platform to straighten connection between team members
Co-working space owners consider a lot of things during the app development process or growing their business. A powerful workspace technology is just one of them.
Nobody knows your managers’ and members’ needs better than you. A coworking space management system is a platform or software designed to make communication convenient between business owners and their employees.
Don’t forget about scalability
There isn’t a company that goes into business without the primary goal of growing and increasing revenue. At some point, your system or apps can’t handle simultaneous requests anymore. If they can’t deal with growing demand, they will reach their limit. When system resources are exhausted and unavailable for further computation, scaling the system is the next logical step.
Choose the vertical or horizontal scaling for your system.
When to use In-House Development?
Despite the seemingly high cost, there are sound reasons for building your in-house team.
- You don’t have a limited budget – If you are running a startup with enough capital at your disposal, managing and hiring an in-house team will give minimal cons and maximum benefits.
- You want to be in total control – You cannot afford the risks of problems that may come up. With your team, you will make the calls on each decision that affects the products’ development.
Conclusion
Once you build your in-house team of software developers, you can focus on other aspects of your business.
You will have them all in one place with a common goal, and all their efforts will be directed towards the success of the project.
Growing an in-house development team gives you all control over the team’s software development process and project engagement.
Author: Nina Petrov is a content marketing specialist, passionate about graphic design, content marketing, and the new generation of green and social businesses. She starts the day scrolling her digest on new digital trends while sipping a cup of coffee with milk and sugar. Her white little bunny tends to reply to your emails when she is on vacation.
