Fast-paced digital environments require rapid and efficient scaling of software development. In most companies, this can be attained through the creation of hybrid software development teams, operated around home-based developers and remote development teams, made up of professionals from different parts of the world. The hybrid software development team enables organizations to tap global talent on demand, scale up or down as circumstances dictate, maintain a high degree of flexibility, and keep costs under control.
A hybrid software development team is a mix of local, in-house employees and distributed teams of developers working from home working together on the same project. Companies can acquire the best of both worlds using this model: the collaboration and immediacy of a local team and the additional skills, scalability, and cost savings of remote experts.
This is not only about outsourcing, but more about establishing a hybrid IT workforce that grows without hitting any boundaries, responds quickly to new demands on the project, and brings varied perspectives and expertise to each piece of work.
The first reason to look at hybrid software development teams is access to a wider talent pool. Let’s face it—all too often, it can feel impossible to find the right person with the right skills in your area. With hybrid teams, you don’t need to worry about where they are geographically. Want someone who’s a great developer with an exceptionally deep knowledge of a certain technology? Someone anywhere in the world could have that expertise. Through a hybrid IT workforce, you are free to work with talent anywhere in the world.
The beauty of hybrid teams is how flexible and scalable they are. Has a large project just materialized? Or do you find yourself in a situation where you need to accelerate the pace of development? You can scale up easily by bringing in more remote development teams to get your work done. And when things slow down, you scale back without the overhead costs of hiring and maintaining full-time employees. Such flexibility in expanding or contracting their team size at will make hybrid teams great solutions for organizations looking to scale or adapt to fluctuating demands.
Hiring full-time, in-house employees can be expensive—particularly when accounting for salaries, office space, benefits, and equipment. With distributed development teams within your organization, you’ll access the pool of skilled professionals in low labor-cost areas without ever compromising on quality. This saves companies loads of money while delivering high-quality software products.
You can keep projects moving around the clock by leveraging local developers and remote development teams across different time zones. In other words, when your team clocks out, the remote team just starts up. This cycle of development ensures that you meet deadlines faster than others and get your product to market sooner.
Of course, this hybrid IT workforce is no easy task in its management. Here are a few common challenges with some tips on how to overcome them.
When working members are dispersed in geographically dispersed locations and time zones, it is not easy to understand each other’s needs. This leads to miscommunication, delayed responses, or unclear instructions, which decrease the work being done to reach its full potential. The best way to avoid this is to have some set protocols for good communication on board and ideally make use of collaboration tools such as Slack, Zoom, or Microsoft Teams. Ensure your teams have regular check-ins and clear workflows so that everyone knows what is expected of them and when.
While this “follow-the-sun” model has many benefits, it is also somewhat challenging: if your teams are not well aligned, handoffs among different time zones can sometimes cause misunderstandings or delays. Combat this by attempting to set in place overlapping hours for any key team players, or at least make sure that key updates have been documented and passed along before anyone logs off. A good handoff process can keep things going continuously.
Remote workers may easily lose contact with or get to feel left out from their in-house counterparts, which likely affects the cohesion and general morale of the team. To defeat this, ensure that the remote development teams are well-informed and involved with significant decisions and virtual meetings. Schedule regular team-building activities—virtual coffee breaks, online gaming sessions, casual chat channels—to keep the entire team feeling engaged and connected.
Another problem with your team spread is their consistency in work quality. Since different team members come with different backgrounds, experiences, and working habits, some may deliver better or worse work output. If you have to prevent this from happening, then you will need to put together standard requirements for code quality and carry out regular code reviews while frequently reminding staff of the expectations. Doing so will keep the same outcome for all teams in-house or remote.
Now that we’ve covered the challenges, let’s dive into some best practices to help you get the most out of your hybrid software development teams.
Agile practices work very well for hybrid teams. Breaking projects into manageable sprints and offering frequent check-ins ensures all those involved, remote or on-site, are kept in sync. Sprint reviews, retrospectives, and daily stand-ups can all ensure the work flows steadily and can identify problems quickly when they pop up.
No hybrid team should lack tools for effective communication and project management. Tools, such as Jira for task management, GitHub for code collaboration, or Slack for communication, tend to keep teams connected and in order. The right tool will ensure everybody gets equal access to the same information and can collaborate seamlessly, no matter where they are.
In a hybrid IT workforce, people have to understand their roles, whether it’s from an office or in the comfort of their own homes. They must know what is expected of them and how all this work helps in the larger perspective of the project. In such cases, detailed job descriptions and clearly defined tasks reduce confusion and keep the team on the same track.
Documentation is a must when the members of your team are to sit remotely. This should include meeting notes, project roadmaps, technical specs, and decisions. That way, everyone involved in the work will be on the same page, even in different time zones or locations.
For any hybrid software development team, trust is the element that is a must-have. Trying to micromanage remote workers is a recipe for disaster: frustration and inefficiency ensue. Empowering your team members to take ownership of their tasks encourages a culture of providing resources and setting expectations to let them handle it. Promote open communication and celebrate successes, and you will have a positive, productive environment.
Hybrid teams have an unparalleled benefit when it comes to scaling your software development effort. Here’s how they speed up your project delivery:
Hybrid teams can operate across different time zones, keeping projects moving throughout the clock cycle. This prevents downtime and accelerates product iteration releases, giving you a competitive edge.
In many cases, by allowing team members to work where they are the most productive—whether that’s a lively office or a quiet home—you can increase overall productivity. Remote development teams are more flexible, which is an attractive characteristic for top talent who may want to work remotely.
When you need to scale the project, you can rapidly scale in or scale out by adding more remote development teams, all without having to incur the time or cost of adding more internally hired staff. This flexibility will enable you to efficiently deal with increased workloads.
Virstack deploys hybrid software development teams to help companies scale their software development. We hereby bring together talented local developers with expert remote development teams from all over the world to give our customers the flexibility and power of a hybrid IT workforce. Do you need to accelerate a project or have specific skills? At Virstack, we are here for you. You will be given customized solutions to help you be the best in this day’s competitive market.
Hybrid software development teams make perfect balance regarding flexibility, scalability, and access to worldwide talent in fast-changing software development environments. Businesses can save costs, speed up delivery, and quickly adapt to changing project needs by leveraging a remote development team besides their in-house staff. Sure, there are challenges—communication management and maintaining team cohesion, for example—but the right tools and processes can be developed while leading the team to establish a robust, inclusive team culture. As the hybrid IT workforce becomes the new standard for even more companies, it becomes clear that this model will become the basis by which software development scales across industries.