Is your team juggling deadlines that keep getting pushed back? Projects feeling rushed and not up to the quality you know they’re capable of? Is there a constant undercurrent of stress overshadowing deliveries? If you answered yes to any of these, your team could be overloaded and on the verge of burnout. As business leaders try to address the great resignation head-on by focusing on retention, they often overlook the potential burnout their employees may be facing due to a lack of resources. The best way to combat this is simple – team scaling.
Team scaling is a highly coveted approach for many companies. 49% of businesses report that freeing up resources to focus on core tasks is one of the leading considerations when contracting with an outside team. This approach allows business leaders to grow and empower their teams while easing bottlenecks caused by busy project commitments. Think your business is ready to tap into a team scaling approach? Our experts examine what a carefully planned team scaling operation can do for your company and potential challenges you may face along the way.
Choosing the Best Talent Comes With Low Maintenance
All companies have their own methods of planning for and accomplishing projects, be it Agile, Kanban, Waterfall, Lean, Scrum, or any combination of methodologies. When allocating resources to complete projects and tasks, the people trusted to complete those projects come with their own set of soft-skills and preferences on how they work. Contracted employees and companies should come well-versed on an array of various methodologies. This saves internal resources in training or upskilling staff before taking on new projects, and it allows the primary company to focus more energy on what they do best. External companies can further ease the burden a company may feel to have employees with specialized experience by bringing expertise to the table on topics where you may have talent gaps, such as project development, quality assurance, or data science.
Poor Planning Can Overload Employees
When a company scales up, it can mean more code to review, people to manage, training needed, course correction, and meetings. Hiring contractors with a “get in, get out” approach may also require further quality assurance to ensure code standards and practices align with the company standards. Our team avoids these pitfalls by first making sure we fully understand requirements and project scope before diving in. We see the most success when clients and their teams are involved throughout the lifecycle of a project – this approach ensures there is less course correction, lower chance of missed deadlines, and a higher quality of output.
Empower Your Teams
The overall productivity within a project can increase since team scaling takes tasks and disperses them among fresh staff or contractors. As the team’s productivity increases, so does their ability to take on more robust projects while meeting deadlines in a timely manner. Project completion, with this new scaled team, is now faster than before. This is further proof that teamwork makes the dream work or rather- team scaling makes the dream work faster.
More Care Is Needed for Communication
With any scaling comes a new team dynamic. Investing time and energy into a connected team provides undeniable advantages – better-connected teams can increase profitability by 21%! With more teams working remotely, it is crucial that organizations prioritize, cultivate, and nurture a culture of productive collaboration. Scheduling meetings with more staff can become complex, especially if the team is located across multiple time zones. We address this issue head-on by proactively planning for barriers, creating work schedules that are beneficial to everyone, and customizing communication practices to make sure that the technologies and methodologies are working for everyone.
You’ll Have a Bench of Skilled Employees On Demand
Think of contracted employees as pro basketball players on the bench ready to join the team at a moment’s notice. A team scaling operation provides your company with developers and other key employees that are ready to help when you need them most – when you are nearing a deadline, need additional testing, or even for year-long projects that require more developers than you have on hand, you can quickly “tap in” team members and move projects forward with little to no downtime. Having pros on the bench is just as important as making sure those pros are a good fit for your team. We ensure success by using our data-driven matching process to pair our clients with the perfect fit from our curated database of IT talent and encourage businesses to find a partner who understands the importance of matching team members to the right projects.
Let’s Get Growing (and Scaling)
With a clear plan and proper planning, team scaling can be an excellent way to increase productivity, decrease stress, and empower your teams. When your business outgrows its current systems and your projects become stuck in the mud, team scaling can allow your business to continue growing and move your projects forward, while freeing up your permanent staff to do what they do best.
The Kikoda team specializes in team scaling and has helped empower state departments, state agencies, non-profits, and private businesses over the years. As an experienced on-shore vendor, we make sure that you can scale with us so that your project remains in-house and your team stays involved every step of the way. However you decide to approach team scaling, be sure it’s with a vendor you trust, who prioritizes your success, and remains transparent throughout the entire lifecycle of your projects.
Need help deciding if team scaling is right for your business? Let us help! Contact us today to talk through your options with a free consultation.
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As a leader in team scaling and managed IT services, we help companies of all sizes power-up their teams with talented IT professionals that are just right for the job using our data-driven matching process. Contact us today to learn how we can help drive your business forward and further Empower your IT!
About Kikoda
Kikoda is a client-focused software company providing comprehensive IT services including custom software development, team scaling, cloud and platform solutions (IaaS, PaaS), data analytics, and business intelligence services…just to name a few.