How to compose a team for agile software development
It is not a secret that companies are always looking for better ways to handle their software development needs to avoid projects dragging for long periods. Agile software development is one of the most preferred ways of software development due to its dynamic development nature, whereby, requirements and solutions evolve during the entire development process. The emphasis on collaboration between different self-organizing and cross-functional teams is at the core foundation of this method.
Characteristics of a good agile development team
When selecting a team for agile software development, a company should ensure that at a minimum, they meet the following factors.
The team must be self-managing: this will require each team to work independently of each other when working on the best way possible to complete a task. Each member of this team is equal, but the responsibilities are not (Scrum roles for example). Therefore, each member must know their roles in the team and play it to the best of their ability during the entire process of development.
Cross-functional: for an agile team to be considered as cross-functional, they must possess all the skills required to come up with the product. This means at the minimum that for each team of development, there has to be a UI/UX designer, backend developers, frontend developer’s etc. who work and coordinate together to ensure that they deliver a given goal to a client. More advance is a team that has anyone required for developing the product on board, also business, marketing or other needed skills. Therefore, it is important when putting an agile development team together to consider their skills.
Co-located: ideally, for an agile team to work coherently, it is required that all members should work together in the same location. This is because the processes are people-focused and when teams and individuals are spread across large areas and different time zones, it is very likely that there will be postponements and unmet deadlines during the entire process. Something agile software development tries to eradicate.
Dedicated: agile software development requires members to be employed in the project full time. Any distraction may lead to severe consequences such as budgetary and timeframe issues of the projects. Therefore, a team must always be dedicated to work on the project full time.
Long-lived: Companies do not make agile decisions with a short term view. The teams should be kept together as much as possible. The familiarity with each other leads to better association and teamwork which leads to better products, processes and faster work.
Hiring team members
Companies hiring process can make or break a team in agile software development, and very likely also in other environments. The approach used to hire can also determine the type of talent a company gets and this may have an impact on whether an agile software development team will be effective or not.
Resumes is one of the ways most companies are able to assess the skills, experience and the competence of a potential new team member. There is two ways that employers can use a resume to determine if a given candidate will be effective for hire in an agile team. Through asking if a candidate applying for the role has worked in an agile setup. The second is through analyzing the content of the resume and drawing your own conclusion if an applicant is qualified to work in your project.
The downside of using resumes for hiring developers, however, is that it can eliminate great candidates who have non-traditional backgrounds. It has no filter of determining the actual experience and expertise of any given candidate. This may also result in false positive, where candidates hype their skills in resume and end up disappointing. Resumes are also not able to determine the personality of a candidate. Therefore, a candidate might have all the skills, for example, and end up being lazy or poor in communication who cannot work in a team setting.
Companies may opt to test the skills of the applicants. This can be done through online testing for skills. This is a better filter when you want to get the right skills for your candidates. It can also be able to include non-traditional developers who for some reason may have the expertise but not the papers. This process, though less often can have false positive, where candidates without skills can be able to pass through the filtering process.
This is why most companies who opt for testing skills do it in two phases. The final phase is done in a controlled environment such as an office setting where the company hiring is located. Candidates can now be evaluated through different tests that are tailored based on the job the candidates will be involved in.
The final phase in the hiring process of candidates in your agile project should be face to face interview. In this process, you are confident that the candidates have the technical skills required to be integrated into a team. However, what you want to determine is their communication ability, the ability to work in a group and as a group, their grooming and their decision making processes. Therefore, companies invest in this process with a lot of companies preferring a panel of experts to interview candidates in order to grade them and determine how well suited they will be for the job. Once you hire for an existing agile software development team, the experts to test the candidates is the team members!
After getting the right candidate, the next step involved is now integrating them in a team. Creating a rapport with other team members should always be encouraged. The team should also be given freedom to express their views without condemnation.
The development team
The development team, therefore should have all the talents required to carry out any given tasks. The roles they play should be predetermined to ensure that there is a good distribution of tasks.
Their composition should also consist of self-managing and cross-functional dedicated members who have undergone an intense recruitment process to ensure that they fit all the qualities required for an agile team.
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