Managing Your Company’s Software Development Team Performance

When you are running a business, you have to make sure every department in your company is running smoothly. We understand the importance of making sure that your marketing and accounting departments are operating properly. However, there are other divisions of your company that you need to monitor as well if you want your business to be successful.

One department that is also important to many tech-savvy companies is the software development team. In addition to making sure that your employees understand the right programming languages. However, that isn’t enough on its own. You must also make sure the team is setup for success.

There are several steps to manage your software development team performance. A successful development team prioritizes communication and collaboration. Communication establishes each member’s role and ensures that tasks are assigned properly. Of course, members should follow set rules to finish projects efficiently and on time. As a lead developer, balance senior management demands, team responsibility and client expectation for an optimized development process. This way, you can help your business to thrive this year. Here are the top ways to manage your software development team performance.

Choose A Team Structure

First, manage your software development team performance by choosing a team structure. The 3 common development team structure types are generalists, specialists and hybrid teams. Generalist teams focus on software improvement as a whole. In fact, they contribute in so many skill areas that they quicken the delivery process. Use a generalist team for end-to end projects with moderate complexity. On the other hand, you can create a specialist team, that develops systems of high quality modules. This structure is best for complex projects with deep technical expertise in an area, such as medicine. Finally, you can work with a hybrid team, which combines generalists and specialists. They are useful for complex, large scaled, agile based projects with more than 8 participants. Certainly, choose a team structure to manage software development team performance.

Establish A Development Process

Secondly, establish a development process to manage your team’s performance. Your software development life cycle (SDLC) require that you have a data-driven methodology. It consists of a flowchart that is divided into different stages with specific goals and items. Choose between an agile or a waterfall development process. Agile is ideal for fast and dynamic work environments. You will work with multiple teams to analyze, plan, design, develop, deploy and maintain your software. Or, you can use the waterfall method which focuses on logical and thought out approaches. It is a step-by-step process, meaning the team does not proceed to the next phase without output from the prior phase. Of course, establish a development process that prioritizes you specific requirements, demands and timeframe.

Select Top Development Tools

Next, select the top development tools to manage your team’s performance. Of course, ensure your team has the correct instruments to focus on innovation, such as DevOps tools. DevOps provides tools such as automation, security, integrated continuous integration/delivery (CI/CD) and pipelines. Using a DevOps pipeline, you can ship updates faster, bolster strong team collaboration, and maximize productivity. Automation devices decrease the chances of human error and time spent on mundane tasks. Meanwhile, security tools find bugs and fix vulnerabilities throughout the development process. Certainly, integrated CI/CD tools allow your team to deliver advanced software faster to clients. Finally, DevOps pipeline automates all operations including code and production while managing a system that supports thousands of users.

Document Processes

Furthermore, ensure that you document your team’s process to manage their performance. Documentation outlines features, troubleshooting directions and functionalities thoroughly. In fact, by documenting the development process, you can evolve and accommodate future update requirements. Additionally, throughout the coding process, members may try to add features, try new ideas or upgrade speed processes. Therefore, by documenting each step, the programmers can see what has already been coded and added. More so, documentation is vital when switching software firms. They will help your new firm understand your system and provide support.

Conduct Application Testing

Finally, manage your software development team’s performance by conducting app security and vulnerability testing. Continuously perform test driven development (TDD) and behavior driven development (BDD). TDD provides confidence in code quality by creating unit test cases prior to developing the code. Meanwhile, BDD describes the behavior of the application in a user-focused language. You can directly learn the client’s required features before translating it into code that works more in favor of the user. Furthermore, full integrated testing ensures all components are cooperating efficiently while increasing code coverage.

There are various steps to manage your software development team performance. First, choose a software development team structure to determine how your project will be handled and where the main focus will be. Secondly, establish a development process to decide how your team will work on and complete your software. Certainly, your team will have an advanced performance with top development tools. These tools can decrease human error, fix vulnerabilities in the early development stages and quicken software delivery. Furthermore, document your processes to manage the steps your team has taken and to determine what needs to be completed. Finally, conduct application testing to ensure your coding properties work as expected and that your software can be updated based on client requirements. These are the stop steps to manage your software development team performance.