What Agile Software Development Team Structure Looks Like
Once you have decided to build a project that will take your business to the next level, it becomes essential to outsource the product for development. And using several resources and blogs, you can find the right web app development company. But, the project's success entirely depends on the development team's structure, that’s not discussed in those resources.
So, we will discuss how the development team structures their tasks, the roles and responsibilities of different team members, and how you can check if the team is working efficiently on the project.
Factors Behind Structure of Software Development Team
We know that project development begins with people. And software development team structure defines the team formation, responsible for web app development, including developers, designers, quality analysts, and project managers.
Read: What is agile software development
Besides, if you want to streamline software development, it is essential to create a competent software development team structure. Hence, while designing the development team structure, some of the factors that you need to consider are as follows:
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The scope of work
The first thing to remember while structuring the development team is that the work volume will determine the number of developers. Initially, during the early development, you will only need a small unit of developers, while as the project moves into the MVP stage, you will need to hire more developers.
Read: Multi-Vendor Food Delivery System
On the other hand, other products need professionals to solve different problems in development.
For example, in cloud-based PaaS application development, sales managers and marketing specialists become such an integral part that sometimes you have to include them in the project, as they know the market and interact with users to uncover problems and share with the team for improvement.
Read: Multi-Cloud vs Hybrid-Cloud
Clearly, the larger the scope of work, the more people you will need.
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The timeframes
Another essential aspect of structuring the development team is the timeframe. Put simply, before composing a team of developers, you need to finalize the amount of time you need the project delivered. For instance, if you have plenty of time to market the product, you can hire fewer developers. While under a deadline, engaging more professionals for faster development is necessary.
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The budget
While structuring the development team, remembering the budget is crucial. Your budget will impact the size and seniority of your team. For example, hiring offshore Java developers from the US might cost you $25000-30000 per month, while in India, you can employ 8-10 developers while staying under budget.
Another essential part of project development is deciding on the suitable methodologies among Waterfall, Agile, Lean, Scrum, KanBan, Six Sigma, and more. Remember that some are better for complex processes while others are adequate for simplified tasks. Although each has its pros and cons, we will discuss the popular one: Agile.
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The roles and responsibilities
Each diversified project requires a different development team with more or fewer structures of roles. Put simply, the tech stack and features required for the project development will determine the IT professionals that need to be involved.
Typical Web App Development Team Structure
Before moving ahead with the Agile development team structure, let’s take a look at what a typical team structure consists of:
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Project Manager
The project manager is the professional responsible for defining, planning, executing, monitoring, and finalizing the project while working within provided constraints. They are the first point of contact for any problem arising from the project or team members before the issue gets escalated to a higher authority. Besides, the project manager keeps track of the development progress and reports to the clients. The main aim of a project manager is to produce results while maximizing profit, reducing costs, and risk of failure.
A business analyst is a professional who analyzes business needs, including documentation, processes, technologies, finances, and systems. BAs also evaluate what will work according to the project and take care of technology and business model alignment.
A frontend developer is responsible for designing interactive visual elements to engage users through web browsers while using web applications. A web designer creates the appearance and design of the web app, and the front-end developer makes sure it works as expected by using programming languages like HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.
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Backend Developer
A backend developer is a professional responsible for building and maintaining the logic and mechanics of the web app to process data and perform actions. Backend developers are involved in security, data storage, data processing, and other server-side activities that you don’t see.
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Quality Analysts
After finalizing the product, quality analysts oversee the quality of the web app by performing static and dynamic testing to find the bugs and other errors before releasing it into the market.
What is an Agile Team Structure?
Now that we know the basics of software development team structure, let’s understand what we mean by Agile Team.
Read: Agile Development Lifecycle
An agile team is a group of employees, freelancers, and offshore vendors who work together to develop and execute agile software. It is primarily a full-time team assigned to the same project with shared responsibility. Besides, the agile team should have all the required skills.
Here is a list of characteristics of an Agile team to help you understand an agile team structure:
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Cross-functional: Agile teams are cross-function where every member has a unique skill set using which they work towards the same goal, i.e., delivering the project on time to fulfill the customer’s requirements.
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Collaborative: An agile team has open communication where development team members share the same beliefs and work together to achieve a common goal. Some members also participate in cross-training with their colleagues to learn new skills. Besides, an agile team explores different ideas to reach a common consensus about processes and methods that helps acquire desired outcomes.
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Non-hierarchical: An agile team structure is a non-hierarchical one that focuses on giving team members the autonomy to work independently while organizing themselves. Simply, every member gets a predefined role and responsibility to learn self-management, and any unnecessary management layers are removed.
Types of Agile Team Structure
The structure of the Agile team will depend on various factors like project resources, type, and cost. Moreover, none of the agile team structures is more beneficial than the other and works well for different teams depending on the requirements.
Read: Data-Oriented Programming in Java
Here is the list of a few types of Agile team structures you can consider:
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Generalist
The generalist agile team structure is one where every member has a basic understanding of different topics without delving into one particular. In simple terms, a generalist agile team knows a little about most of the tools and technologies. And because of this versatility, this team can work on different tasks easily. Generalist agile team structure is often used by smaller teams where professionals use their versatile knowledge to work on different parts of the business.
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Specialist
Specialist agile software development team structure is just the opposite of the generalist. In this agile structure, each member of the team has proficiency in a different niche and is responsible for tasks under the domain they are skilled in. This team offers remarkable insights to improve the product quality and is commonly used in a larger team.
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Hybrid
As the name suggests, a hybrid agile team is the blend of both specialist and generalist teams. In this agile team structure, every specialist professional will focus on developing the project’s complex elements, and the generalists will tie these elements to give meaning to the project. It allows the team to gain more knowledge from each other. Hybrid agile teams can improve the quality of the deliverables, sense of ownership, and teamwork.
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Parallel
The parallel agile team structure allows its members to change tasks regularly. Put simply, if the team is working on the web app design in the first sprint, they will altogether move to the development in the upcoming sprint. This helps the agile team to work parallelly. However, using this structure of team development requires multiple training with experienced professionals who can adapt to different roles easily.
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Sub-team
Developing large web applications requires larger Agile teams. So, the sub-team agile structure helps you handle individual units of sub-teams in a larger team. The sub-team works on specific elements that combine with other elements to form the entire web application. It is used to divide a large project into smaller parts while improving responsibility and visibility.
Roles & Responsibilities of Agile Software Development Team
Now that we know about the types of agile software development team structures, it’s time to look at the roles and responsibilities in agile development.
Read: Data Pipeline Architecture
The main roles and responsibilities in the agile software development team are as follows:
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Product Owner (PO)
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Scrum Master
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Development team
Product Owner (PO)
Product owners are the main stakeholders of the project who have significant knowledge of the product. Their core aim in agile software development is to ensure that the final product is exactly what the client has asked for.
Scrum Master
Scrum helps teams execute and adapt according to the needs of the web application. So, the scrum master here is the one whom team members contact to coordinate the requirements of the project.
Development team
Now the development team is an integral part of agile software development. It includes both frontend and backend developers along with UI/UX designers and quality assurance testers. They work closely with one another to ensure that the project is performing as expected with little to no latency.
Conclusion
So that was all for the agile software development team structure. We hope you find it helpful for your business project.
Lastly, if you want to build your Agile team structure but don’t know where to start? Follow these steps:
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Choose the Agile model: First, decide which agile development model will be more suitable for your team.
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Assign Roles: Take time to analyze the skills of the agile team members then assign their roles.
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Stay Adaptable: Keep the agile team adaptable and flexible by making adjustments according to the team’s needs.
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