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The key to success on any software project is a well thought out software development team structure. In a software development team, it is quite important to deploy the right people for the right work. Also, one needs to take care of all the important stages involved in  completing the project. Be it the selection of developers in the project teams or the allocation of roles and responsibilities to each individual, we have got it covered for you.

In this article, we have very clearly explained about how you can structure your software development team. Don't worry, even if you are totally clueless till now and are worried about whether the team will be structured efficiently or not, just keep reading as this is the just the page for you.

Software Development Team Roles and Responsibilities

To structure a fully functional team, it is not just enough to divide people randomly into small groups but also your team should be very well balanced. In other simple words, your team should be able to handle each and every stage of the project development on its very own.

Putting together a team does not mean it becomes a monolith. Always feel free to shuffle your teams when it is necessary. For instance, you can shuffle your team prior to beginning a whole new project, when there are alterations in the number of employees or their productivity. Also if you want a single team to review the code of another, you can shuffle the team members. Last but not least, be sure to assign the right people to the right projects that match their personal interests and area of expertise.

Tips And Tricks To Structure A Software Development Team

Team Lead

Firstly, don't confuse this with project manager because both are completely different things. The responsibilities of the Team Lead include retaining the team cohesion and making sure that there is availability of all the resources needed for a project at any time. The Team Lead is not always the best engineer as he does not have the ability to take care of the team's importance which is more crucial for this very role. Some prefer to use team lead as the term coach for this position, which is also quite suitable. If you have a few teams, it is a totally good idea to assign a Team Lead for each of them.

Chief Architect

If your company’s structure unites many development squads then you may need a person who can smoothly coordinate the workflow between all the groups The Chief Architect is also someone who is responsible for building common understanding of the product architecture, design, as well as concept.

Project Teams

This can be one or more teams each with a Technical Lead as well as a Project Manager. The project teams should adopt a very agile scrum approach for development, along with the features that are clearly defined by the Product Managers. It is also important that the features are organised for development by the Project Manager into real stories.

Maintenance Team

Usually only one team per product is deployed. This team is very much responsible for the proactive maintenance and the analysing and fixing of the bugs in the live environment. Issues are very well managed in a kanban style that is basically prioritized by a project manager and it can be raised by the customers with the help of a helpdesk for triage by the maintenance team. Merely bug fixing does not need to be planned, and bugs should not be estimated as there is no sprint. The advantage of kanban means a constant stream of fixing the most imperative issues, shipping frequently and independently of the new feature releases.

Product Owner

The primary function of the Product Owner is to ensure that the team builds the right product that is well suited for all.  This particular person is responsible for prioritizing the tasks in the backlog for planning the scope of work for the next few months. In simple words, the Product Owner is main connection point between the team, stakeholders, as well as users. There are a lot of other specific development roles also that can upgrade your team and we'll talk about them in detail in our upcoming blogs. 

Paying Attention To The Inner Climate

The psychological compatibility of your team members affect performance to a great extent even more so than their qualifications. Hence it is important to be aware of the way your teammates treat one other. Do your best in order to resolve all the arising or already existing conflicts. Make sure to encourage partnership and team spirit within them. Be responsible enough to create an environment where people feel really free to discuss as well as suggest ideas. All this will help create fertile soil for growing a successful project in the future.

Project Management Systems

There are endless systems in the market out there which promise Project Management nirvana. We advice everyone that a poor system used well is always better than a great system used badly.  In order to capture business requirements and refine them to workable stories,  do consider a separate high level tool to manage this thing.

Roadmap

The chosen software project management tool is the remit of Developers and Project Managers and not the product of the people. Now thi may be useful or sufficient to collate the current and future epics in a report or in a high level board of its own. All this will give the development team a visibility of what is coming up next and act as a point of quick reference for the observers.

Conclusion

We hope that you this article on how to structure a software development team provided you good insights which will ultimately help you structure a super team for your next big project. Alternatively, you can always contact our software development company to hire a software development team that is just perfect for you. Not only is our team highly qualified and well structured but also friendly in the entire process. So feel free to get in touch with us any day, any time.