Team – a means of technology intervention

When you are extending your efforts in product development, what are the things which come to your mind at first? Deadlines? Opinions may vary. Along with deadlines, you may say product requirements or the standards to be followed. No doubt, these factors are one of the prime factors but a good team is a key factor during any product development.
 

A team which is highly experienced and has core understanding for technology, is widely in demand across verticals. In this blog, we will talk about how a good team plays a significant role in product development.

Team members differ on various criteria, someone who has just started with the first development in his career, while another may be several years old in the same vertical. What matter are brainpower and market understanding going in the same symmetry. A team plays a crucial role in materializing the business idea of the client. Knowing what he wants? Addressing to the business problem? All together comes under one roof and executed by a team.

Adhering to the guidelines, standards and the business requirements, the team together needs to work on creating something that is new. The development is concentrated on helping the business concern, reduce on the operational cost, achieve the business objectives and create a real time product.

A product development team vastly concentrates on various factors. Some of them include:

• Determining team members and team composition – There is a process of breaking down the requirements in user stories which assists in determining the team strength. As per the breakdown structure, team members are allotted the activities. It is important to breakdown the team wherein you have specific team members like architects, quality analysts, coder, lead and other professionals. This shall help in following the process, distribute the jobs, and yielding the product on time.
• Mandatory to follow the protocol – Every team member should follow the process, communicate at all levels, log the defects, test cases, go with Jira and other phases.
• Documentation – It is important to document the requirements before proceeding in the development. Well documented project wins the race at first.
• One point of contact – Usually a product manager or the lead takes up this activity where one has to understand the client’s requirements. Calls taken at regular intervals and details of each specification helps the team to overall have a successful project execution.
• Agile Development methodology – Teams abiding to agile methodology with fixed release date, they are able to materialize the product in a much faster magnitude. Also, checking up the project progress with the client and matching up with his specifications do affect the entire process.
• Meeting the timelines – Keeping up to date with the launching date of the product shall keep the team work accordingly. The team members need to accomplish milestones and make sure they easily cut on ‘time to market’ the product.

Information technology is all about its human resources. The experienced team you have, the better is your project. Coming to team in terms of their performance, following are some of the factors that a product development team should have are:

1. Functional and Technical Expertise – These are skills which go together hand in hand. You should know what is your team’s USP and how they do in their respective areas. Get going with one’s skills sets in computing styles, coding proficiency, interaction paradigms, custom development etc.
2. Decision-Making and Problem-Solving Skills – It is highly important for a  team to track the problem areas and evaluate the right solution. This should be well communicated with the lead. Team members should be focus at the pain point, make the right decisions, able to take risks, and solve the problem with his tentative plan.
3. Interpersonal Skills – With a good number of people involved in a project, healthy communication is a must. There are chances when opinions may contradict and lead to conflict. This is where an unbiased team leader is required. All team members should be good listeners, ready to accept criticism, recognize others’ efforts and ideas.

With a timeline to adhere to and a standard to follow, a good team is instrumental. Invest on a  team which has the understanding to execute a project in the right order. A successful team is the niche in any product development process. If you have bagged a project, it’s great but if you also got an excellent team to compliment, you are lucky.