Team as a Service Outsourcing Model

Across industries, customers demand modern, digitized solutions. To answer their requests, companies rush to build state-of-the-art apps and software, slowly draining the global pool of skilled developers.

Now that it is your turn to build a product, it’s impossible to recruit the right people. And even if you attract a few professionals, what to do when the time comes to scale (up or down)?

The worst thing you can do is put a strain on an in-house team – an approach we see way too many companies opt for. Ultimately, they realize this only leads to burnout, dissatisfaction, a drop in quality, and its final stages – high employee churn.

We get it: expanding the team to overcome a busy season is risky. What to do when you no longer need those extra hands? You set aside the time and money to recruit the top talent, and once the project is over, you are supposed to continue to provide new and exciting career opportunities to retain them. And who knows if you’ll ever need their help in the future?

What you really need at this point is to downscale or switch up the internal team structure. But how do you do it without ending up with a detrimental hole in your budget or a bad brand rep?

Here enters the team as a service outsourcing model.

The team as a service (TaaS) outsourcing model refers to the temporary employment of a self-managed specialist team to build or maintain a software product. The external team quickly integrates with the in-house one and serves you only as long as you need them. TaaS enables companies to keep the team structure flexible and always match the current project requirements.

The TaaS brings on a group of specialists who don’t work directly with your in-house team. They work independently and are managed by an external or internal project manager or CTO. What differentiates the team as a service from other outsourcing models is that you have complete control over the team’s activities.

You hire an HR specialist with experience in software development recruitment to look for individuals instead of you. Since they have access to a broader talent pool of vetted and trained developers, they act as headhunters who peek in their little black books to find the ones available to jump on your project.

The outside recruiters do the grunt work: search for developers with the right skills, experience, and mindset to easily integrate with your internal team. They narrow your search to individuals with the expertise that closes your in-house gap.

The idea behind the team as a service model is to deliver the same quality of products you would expect from your in-house team. The difference is that there is no need for additional desk space or resources you would otherwise spend on hiring and training a new employee.

How is this different from hiring freelancers? With freelancers, you bring in individual members rather than an established team. This takes a lot more time, and there’s no guarantee that you will get the right people to supplement your internal team.

And the team as a service doesn’t only add resources – you get a team of trained professionals who will understand your vision and goals, and work diligently towards achieving them without you having to micromanage them. Ultimately, this turns out to be more affordable than going through an entire recruitment, onboarding, and training process.

Building a team for a web development project can require filling different positions. In some cases, usually smaller teams, it is common to see one person assume multiple roles. However, as the project progresses, it becomes impossible for one person to multitask to that extent.

To successfully complete a software development project, you need people to take over:

• Planning and strategizing
• Project management
• User interface and graphic design
• Information architecture creation and product development
• QA and user acceptance testing

The final team structure will depend on your specific requirements: whether you need a specialized developer to build a custom feature, iOS programmers for mobile app development, a manager to handle operations duties, a sales team, or someone to ensure security and a high level of protection. Some of them won’t even be involved through the entire project but join in at different phases.

As its name suggests, a team as a service model gets you an entire team. This includes multiple experts who can fill several roles. Some of the most common ones are:

One or more people are declared project stakeholders and are involved during the project initiation phase. For smaller projects, one persona can be the stakeholder and the project manager, usually a customer. Their job is to oversee the entire project, manage budget planning and spending, as well as approve product roadmap and plan. They are also responsible for providing the necessary resources for successful project completion.

There can be three types of stakeholders:

• Primary (shareholders, team members, top managers) who have a financial interest.
• Secondary (vendors, clients, government bodies) who are not directly affiliated with the project but have significant influence.
• Key stakeholders, who are directly affected by the result and have a significant influence on the project completion. They can, at the same time, fall under any of the first two categories.

Requirements analyst is the first person you need on your team since they are responsible for analyzing and defining project requirements. You communicate your objectives with them and then leave it up to the analyst to turn that info into technical requirements. This allows them to advise you on potentially important product features and specifications.

They help set a solid base and optimize workflow for large teams, which makes them redundant for most smaller-scale projects.

The information architect is involved in the earliest project phases. Their job is to organize and categorize structure and explain the development plan to the team and stakeholders. They work closely with UX/UI designers to create a wireframe based on end-users needs and expectations. Information architects deliver key charts and diagrams that act as visual representations of what the website or product structure should look like. These are then relayed to developers and designers.

A project manager receives technical specifications from the analyst, familiarizes themself with the requirements, and then builds an entire project plan. Throughout the project, the PM is responsible for team coordination to ensure the sprint deadlines are met and according to the project requirements. They are also in charge of mitigating risks and coming up with solutions to any obstacles.

A UX/UI designer receives project requirements and studies the target user to forecast potential struggles and determine the best way to solve them. User experience involves research and structure creation, while the user interface is about visual elements, like color scheme and font.

Back-end developers are the main ones responsible for website functionality. They work on the server side of the product, ensuring that the data travels safely from the back to the front. Back-end developers are proficient in Java, PHP, .NET, Python, or Ruby. Which one you’ll hire depends solely on the technologies you need to develop the product you are building.

Front-end developers are in direct contact with the back-end and design team. Basically, they take what the designers come up with and build the front of the website/product upon the back-end structure. Front-end developers are usually well-versed in HTML, CSS, or JS, but it is also possible to find one person who is the master of all.

Before the official product release, quality assurance engineers design and execute adequate tests to determine if the product meets the quality standards. They record the bugs and inform developers of necessary fixes. A QA engineer can join at the end of the project, but it is advisable to have them test the product at different development stages.

Users are becoming less tolerant of bugs and expect short turnaround times for software fixes and updates. To avoid burnout of the internal team and maintain the highest level of quality, companies turn to the team as a service model. It comes with multiple advantages that make it a more preferable approach to development over other forms of outsourcing.

1. Established team dynamic

Considering the number of additional people you need and the versatility of their roles, you would be right to worry whether they will be able to work together efficiently. With TaaS, you get a well-coordinated team with the right chemistry that works like a well-oiled machine to get the job done right.

2. Better working flexibility

As already mentioned, the TaaS model allows you to scale up or down and cancel the partnership at any point. You get pre-vetted individuals and can exchange them at any point to match the project needs and ensure you always have the A-team.

Let’s say you’re at the beginning. In the earliest phases, you need a solid, multi-specialist back-end team to establish a base for the software. As the project progresses, you can downsize to one or a few people to maintain the back end and get a few more in for the front end and design teams instead.

3. Continued growth opportunities

To maintain a strong position in the market, companies are expected to deliver the most advanced software. But with developer scarcity and difficulty finding the right specialist, companies risk internal burnout trying to reduce time-to-market while maintaining quality. TaaS allows companies to get a complete package: the right team, the best product, and in the shortest time possible.

When the time comes for the product to evolve, it doesn’t take long to bring in a new developer familiar with the rest of the team’s dynamic who has the skills to build the update.

4. Reduced costs

The cost-saving benefits come in phases:

• First, you save money on recruitment – it can be a lengthy process to find the right person; meanwhile, your progress is stagnating, or your internal team is bursting at its seams.
• Then you save money on onboarding and training since you get the person with the right skillset who will seamlessly integrate.
• Ultimately, you are looking at lower administrative costs as they are not passed on to you, but the outsourcing service covers them. This way, you hire the best team without thinking about accompanying costs like taxes, health insurance, perks, etc.

You can say that the team as a service model enables companies to get the equivalent of the “pay per use” payment model. With team members on the roster, you never have to pay for an extra member who has nothing to do at the moment or cover the costs of a vacant position. What you need is what you get at all times, and with such optimal resources come optimized development costs.

5. Improved transparency

Since the team as a service model provides companies and their internal project managers with complete control, they can oversee the entire development process from start to finish. It creates opportunities for closer collaboration and productive brainstorming sessions to build an action plan aligned with the company’s mission. This style of remote team management reduces the risk of receiving unsatisfactory product quality, or software missing key components. Many indicate how managing TaaS feels as if you are managing an internal team, the only difference being that they are working remotely.

6. Greater availability for other opportunities

The team as a service model delivers a self-managed team that lets you direct your attention toward other important business aspects. Your internal team members can work at a steady pace and stay content. This also gives them more time to take up a different project you have in mind, and would rather delegate to your people than the external partner.

7. Wider talent pool

Finally, like with other outsourcing models, you are guaranteed to find the best people. You are not limited to experts available locally but can gather a distributed team to work as one, no matter where each person is located. And with the staffing requirements being as dynamic and challenging to meet, it is critical to have an ace up your sleeve – one like TaaS. The team as a service model keeps you equipped with professionals who, in addition to their skill set, continue to embrace the latest standards and tools required to meet the highest quality thresholds.

Like with any other outsourcing model, the team as a service is ideal for companies that cannot find local experts to join the team. More specifically, TaaS is a good investment for:

• startups
• rapidly growing businesses
• businesses unable to predict future growth
• businesses that need quick results and a short time to market
• businesses uncertain of the staffing requirements
• businesses that need to fill in various open positions

Working with a remote team means limited or no in-person interactions that make building healthy and strong bonds more challenging. But to maximize project success, you need to build a positive work environment that will have a constructive effect on employee happiness and productivity. So what can a manager do to create a positive atmosphere?

Though TaaS is intended to simplify onboarding, it doesn’t mean you should completely skip this step. To ensure the goals are lined up and the newcomers are up to speed, provide helpful materials that contain vital information about the project they will work on. This can include the product roadmap, tech stack, milestones, goals, deadlines, and anything else the external team might need to align their approach with your vision.

Even though they might be a temporary addition, it is crucial to understand their challenges and their specific requirements. This will help determine the need for a change regarding the work process, how you collaborate and exchange information, and so on.

But to get to know your team, you must always keep the communication channels open. This means creating the opportunity for any of them, or their team lead, to come forward with questions, concerns, or advice on how to take future actions. This brings us to our next point.

Set up recurrent one-on-ones to create a more personal atmosphere where individuals will speak up more freely. How often to make room for meetings like these in your calendar? We say – stay on the pulse to sense the team and project requirements. Sometimes they should occur as often as weekly, while other times, a monthly check-in will suffice.

Even when companies recognize the need for resource scarcity, they may not be able to determine what exactly they are lacking and how to supplement it.

Nearshore helps define requirements and discover the right people for the job. We help you build the best team and reduce time to market while minimizing the costs of the entire venture. No need to waste time and money on recruitment and onboarding – we find the people who will be up for the task from the get-go.