What is an Augmented Team? Building Outsourced Teams

Augmented Teams

Everything You Wanted to Know About What is an Augmented Team? Building Outsourced Teams.

If you specialize in software development or run an agile tech business, you will likely have come across the term team augmentation. The world of software development nowadays features multiple ways to complete every project. Staff augmentation is one unique technique that is today gaining more momentum than ever before. Businesses can now deliver innovation roadmaps while remaining lean, thanks to team augmentation (1).

“…Staff augmentation is, in fact, a relatively new kind of outsourcing that entails injecting your firm with qualified professionals. “

– Forbes

All they need is to hire software developers that join an in-house development team to work on a specific project. Alternatively, the external software development team can also take on a complete project from start to finish.

Here we will help you keep an ear to the ground on everything about team augmentation and how you can build an outsourced team in 2022 moving forward to 2023. We will offer you an insight into the share cost-effective ways for running a lean team and dive deep into the team augmentation services, including its benefits, challenges, and how you can choose the right augmented team for your business. So, keep reading.

First things First! What is Team Augmentation?

It is the process of adding outside developers to a company’s team as a third-party business outsources a section of its software development project. In other words, team augmentation offers your business the chance to pay for a team’s services only when you need them, where you need them, and how long you need them (2). In the long run, all these aspects of an augmented team help businesses keep teams reasonably priced.

In addition, using extended teams from a third-party company helps businesses worldwide keep their in-house teams small and enjoy a wide range of tech expertise and a larger tech team. At Sonatafy, we have a staff augmentation model that knows the value of cutting costs without compromising the quality of service. We aim to promote success within your software teams since Sonatafy believes in higher-quality services. While using an augmented team may be one of many options, it is one that we highly recommend if you intend to fill gaps within your staff.

If you wish to learn more about other strategic outsourcing ideas for your company, click here for this insightful piece.

What are the Benefits of Team Augmentation?

There is no doubt that there is much to compare between traditional outsourcing and team augmentation. Most importantly, since the inception of team augmentation in global commercialization, this model has provided peace of mind for delivery teams. However, depending on your business needs, here are the numerous reasons why team augmentation might be your ideal solution.

Improved Output

Working with an augmented team means you can hand-pick the best resources and expertise to work on your project. The result is that you get to increase the quality of work dramatically.

Reduced Costs

Hiring full-time technicians are much more expensive than hiring an augmented team. Staff augmentation helps businesses avoid costly onboarding processes and the need for in-house full-time tech. The benefit of reduced costs also comes in handy with the fact that there will be little to no wasted time.

Project Visibility

Team augmentation comes with the benefit of project visibility and transparency because the augmented team wants to deliver the best. Therefore, a good relationship with the client helps maintain complete and ongoing visibility of the project’s development process. This means that the client’s confidence in the team grows as the work evolves.

Complete Flexibility

An augmented team helps any business, small or big, startup or established, enjoy a flexible team size and skillset. We all know that shifting full-time employees can take significantly longer than the project itself. Therefore, the recommendation is to hire augmented team members and have your project run quickly.

Team Augmentation: The Nuts and Bolts

Outsourcing part of a business software development project to another business could be done by adding a single person to help fill a skill gap in the local team. Also, it could mean adding a few outside engineers to work with your internal staff. In this 21st century, it is prevalent for businesses to use staff augmentation services.

As earlier-mentioned, team augmentation can be beneficial for multiple business needs, like filling skill gaps and incorporating expertise in a specific area. And that’s without forgetting that an augmented team can also help increase the efficiency and capacity of an existing project. Other companies work with an augmented team to offer extra support or knowledge to an in-house team while handling long or multiple projects.

It is important to note that team augmentation doesn’t mean you outsource your entire project because some of your core staff are also part of it. Instead, it means supplementing your in-house staff with a remote or in-person individual or team with the specific expertise and skills you need.

It is also vital to note that choosing an augmented team can either be a short-term solution or a long-term benefit. In that case, team augmentation is the ideal place to consider when looking for a developer for temporary work or someone to help your development team get a project back on track.

Team augmentation services are also your best bet when searching for an entire dedicated team to help your in-house team handle multiple projects simultaneously. But remember that collaboration is critical if you want a successful implementation of team augmentation. The bottom line is having someone or a team that can work together to attain a common goal.

Why do You Need Staff Augmentation for Your Business?

Your business needs staff augmentation to engage a professional when you need one. Typically, the idea is to avoid the costly and long-term commitments of hiring a full-time in-house professional. Plus, when you remember how the new Affordable Care Act can make it more challenging and expensive to recruit full-time staff, you are left with the augmented staffing option. The best thing about using augmented staffing services is that you can quickly bypass health insurance fees and restrictive ACA regulations.

While these are the primary reasons you should consider adding a new staff member to your business using team augmentation, the strategy comes with multiple other benefits, as discussed below;

Accessing a Vast Talent Pool

One of the main advantages of team augmentation is that it lets you access a broader range of talent, primarily due to the international nature of outsourcing. That means you can enjoy a more excellent choice of skills. You no longer have to focus on your current in-house team alone. Instead, staff augmentation allows you to access an entire network of experts.

With such a strategy in place, you are more likely to locate the perfect tech talent for your business project. And it doesn’t matter what experience level or skill set you need. Sonatafy has handled multiple team augmentation projects. So, depending on your needs, we know how to match you with the perfect tech specialist from our team.

Flexibility

The traditional way of hiring new developers is pretty good, after all. However, the truth is that it comes with several delays and drawbacks. For instance, we all know this process’s time-consuming, especially the recruitment part. That’s not all! It also doesn’t give businesses enough room to build their new teams without forgetting that the longer it takes, the more it costs. Furthermore, it may only be feasible to hire some different specialists to work full-time in your firm.

Suppose your current in-house team runs into an unexpected problem while in the middle of a project. In that case, we can quickly help you add a new member specialized in that area to fix the issue. That is flexibility!

Increased Efficiency

Another massive advantage of working with an augmented team is increased efficiency. This model typically fills the gaps in your team, thus speeding up the team’s work. With increased efficiency, there is also the direct benefit of solving potential project issues seamlessly and faster, even in the future. In addition, team augmentation lets you worry not about costly and lengthy training and onboarding because you only need to hire professionals when you need them to work on each given project.

Furthermore, there is no need to worry about explaining the basics to the augmented team because you will already appoint individuals with the necessary skills and expertise. And in addition to boosting efficiency in your business, you save money and time in the long run.

Better Quality of Work

When hiring an augmented team, you choose the best—adding additional developers with specialized skills or knowledge to your in-house team. With time, your full-time internal staff gets to improve the overall quality of their work. Your primary staff significantly benefits from collaborating with the dedicated augmented team as they acquire new skills and knowledge. This, in turn, improves how the group works and communicates together, even in the future.

You Get The Professional Tech Help When You Need It

Working with an augmented team exposes you and your business to more significant expertise. You can pick an experienced external team depending on the specialized knowledge that your project requires and bring it to work for you. Therefore, you won’t have to worry about hiring the said team full-time.

At Sonatafy, we have experienced executive, engineering, and talent acquisition teams excited about building your perfect software development team, thus helping your business develop. Our software developers, from Full Stack Software Developers, Front End Software Developers, Mobile App Developers, etc., have vast experience in Codebase and Contribution Audit, Web and Mobile Applications, QA and Maintenance, DevOps, etc. They have helped us complete hundreds of various projects successfully.

When is Team Augmentation a Good Idea?

So, many people are often eager to know when they should use team augmentation. But let’s face it! There is no one-size-fits-all outsourcing staffing technique because whichever you choose depends on your business objectives and specific needs. Therefore, before you decide to use team augmentation services to incorporate an extra professional into your local team, it would help if you spare some time to research these things;

  • Your Goals
  • Your Needs
  • Your Expectations

Team augmentation can be an excellent idea if you look forward to adding someone with a particular skill set or knowledge to your business. This model can be beneficial if your local team is struggling with an unexpected project hurdle or if you are currently working on a new project requiring knowledge and expertise in a specific area.

Here we have some scenarios when team augmentation may be a perfect idea worth implementing;

When Accessing Developers with Specific Skills is Your Number One Priority

Do you need a QA Engineer, AI expert, Web developer, or any other specific skill set that you currently don’t have locally? Why not leverage team augmentation services and augment your existing in-house team with a single expert or a team to add value to your business without having to hire them full-time?

When You Need Some Extra Support

We all need additional support at one point or another. And developers are not an exception! With that extra support, you can help your developers not to feel overwhelmed if they are busy working on completing other tasks. An augmented team is also tremendously helpful when your local team works on a large project or during peak periods.

When Scaling Up

You know you need to scale up quickly when you are experiencing a sudden increase in workload for reasons like a very successful product launch or a new potential client. It can also be due to a need for adequate office space or a budget to sign up an entire team. In such cases, team augmentation can be of tremendous help.

When Increasing Capacity Quickly is a Priority

Sometimes you encounter an unexpected issue within your business, and you must fix it on time. Other times you are in a situation where you quickly need to ramp up for a new project. In both cases, team augmentation is one of the best ways to add extra remote developers to your team in the fastest way possible.

When Your Project Needs Expertise in a Specific Area

Sometimes there is just a gap in your in-house team that needs to be filled with someone with specific knowledge or skills. We highly recommend team augmentation services to get the best from the vast, remote talent pool.

Team Augmentation Challenges

So far, adding an augmented team to your local workforce is an excellent idea for any firm that looks forward to accessing a vast talent pool while enjoying flexibility and more significant expertise. Getting quality hires for your business may take time and effort. When using team augmentation to grow your in-house team, you may encounter some of the following challenges;

It May be Costly

Cost is one difficulty you may face when using team augmentation services compared to other staffing solutions. No doubt hiring a dedicated team of experts comes with added costs. However, unlike hiring freelancers or full-time employees, it is more cost-effective to grow your in-house crew with an augmented team.

You May Have to Work with an Unfamiliar Team

Team augmentation means handing over some responsibility to another party. In some cases, you may need to become more familiar with the third-party group of people, which can lead to a lack of control, particularly at the beginning of the project.

Integration

When augmenting your team with an external specialist, getting everyone on the same page may take time and effort. At Sonatafy, we encourage businesses that use this model to ensure good collaboration and communication right from the beginning.

Staff Augmentation Vs. Consulting

Businesses in the United States of America and all over the globe commonly use staff augmentation, or team augmentation, when they urgently need an expert on a specific field onboard a new project or one already in motion (3).

“IT staff augmentation services entail the allocation of dedicated technical resources, usually offshore, hired as overseas development extensions of in-house application development teams on fixed or flexible terms and conditions.”

– Wikipedia

In other words, a company uses this outsourcing model to locate temporary workers who can fill short-term positions within its setup.

On the other side, consulting is when a business hires a complete team from an external source to work on a project from the beginning to the end. In consulting, you must hire a software development expert or team from a consulting agency. Consulting can be an excellent approach if your company needs a whole team with the skills and knowledge to see a project from start to finish. This is just the tip of the iceburg, we built an article digging deeper into the staff augmentation vs consulting debate, click for more. 

Staff Augmentation Example

Sonatafy Technology gives you the perfect opportunity to extend your team. Augmenting your software development team with us is like tapping into many years of excellent service, experience and success.

Here are a few examples of how our existing clients extend their in-house teams with Sonatafy;

  • The management and development teams on the client’s side work together with our QA department.
  • The project manager on the client’s side collaborates with the IOS Developer or Android Developer from our side.
  • The development team from the client’s side works together with specialized staff with unique skill sets from our side.

.Net Developers Frequently Asked Questions About What is an Augmented Team? Building Outsourced Teams.

What Does it Mean to Augment a Team?

Augmenting a team means using an outsourcing strategy to meet your business objectives while staffing a project. To successfully augment your team, you must first evaluate your existing staff before determining the additional skills or knowledge that the project requires.

What is Team Augmentation Model?

In simple terms, the team augmentation model is when one firm outsources a section of its project to another company by incorporating experts from the company into its team. For example, suppose you need to outsource part of your software development project to another firm like Sonatafy. In that case, we can offer you some of our best developers to add to your team and help them complete the project on time.

What Does when Staff is Augmented Mean?

When staff is augmented, a business has implemented staff augmentation to fill short-term job positions using temporary employees. And this could be one expert needed to fill a skill gap or a team of developers working with the local team.

What is another word for staff augmentation?

Another word for staff augmentation is team augmentation. The term ‘augment’ means increasing, multiplying, or enlarging. Therefore, using staff augmentation services means adding an augmented team to your local team or what is already well-grown or well-developed. The staff augmentation model has helped many businesses in the United States of America increase efficiency, boost the quality of work, and access a vast talent pool, among other key benefits.

What Are Augmented Teams & How Do They Work with Product Owners?

Augmented teams are generally in-house teams that an organization has enhanced by adding external specialist members. With this team setup, your business is in a better position to maintain visibility and control. And that’s without forgetting that companies also get to add the extra fundamental knowledge and skills required to make rapid progress.

How Can I Choose the Right Augmented Team?

You can choose the right augmented team by assessing your business staffing needs before considering the following factors.

Experience & Expertise

An experienced team augmentation vendor should be able to offer your company the additional IT staff it needs to work on a particular project. Therefore, we recommend reviewing and substantiating a vendor’s professional credentials and work history.

Compatibility

You will also want to ensure that the outsourced creative talent is compatible with the project managers and your in-house team members. One way to achieve this is by paying attention to the language and cultural differences.

Establish the Right Staffing Plan for You

After assessing the specifics of your crew’s staffing needs, it would help if you weigh all the available outsourcing options (4). Then choose between an onshore or offshore staffing plan. A hybrid staffing approach can also be worth considering.

Assess Delivery Plans and Contract Types

An experienced and professional staffing partner should customize work agreements to fit your unique business requirements. Avoid team augmentation firms that can only offer you some standardized or one-size-fits-all contracts or boilerplate work agreements.

References:

1. “…Staff augmentation is, in fact, a relatively new kind of outsourcing that entails injecting your firm with qualified professionals.” – Forbes Quote
https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2021/11/18/it-staff-augmentation-a-unique-talent-option-for-startups/?sh=542e06a46f62
2. Staff Augmentation in Your Team’s Puzzle — A Helpful Way to Find the Missing Piece
https://forbytes.com/blog/dedicated-team-vs-staff-augmentation/
3. “IT staff augmentation services entail the allocation of dedicated technical resources, usually offshore, hired as overseas development extensions of in-house application development teams on fixed or flexible terms and conditions.” – Wikipedia Quote
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Staff_augmentation
4. How to Develop a Staffing Plan
https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/tools-and-samples/how-to-guides/pages/how-to-develop-a-staffing-plan.aspx