Importance of teamwork in software development today Like all other industries, software development has entered the stage of automation after reaching certain level of maturity. Nowadays all the main platforms are standardized and contain lots of patterns. This allows software developers to avoid numerous routine actions such as creation of buttons, dialogue windows, authorization forms etc. As a result, more time is left for more creative complicated tasks. Today a big and ambitious software project requires a lot of well-organized programmers labor in order to meet all the functional set demands . And obviously it’s not enough to put together several software developers and provide them with a range of tasks. They are to be properly organized in order to avoid situations when a team member having some blocking issues slows down the whole team’s performance.
Proper teamwork organizing is the best way to solve those difficulties. It includes the following elements:
- Planning
No planning means no organization. Still, methods of planning vary for different situations. In software development, tasks and priorities may change very often depending on sudden technical difficulties, customer requests, unexpected time losses etc. It is good to check from time to time whether the initial plan is relevant to a current situation. Plans should be flexible enough – of course, customer feedback is necessary for all important changes in work schedule.
- Training
Team, autonomous as it is, could hold its training meetings – not only participating in general company events. This allows software developers adopt some special training activities which meet specific tasks of peculiar team the best. On the other hand, the knowledge exchange between different teams is good as well. It really unites the company staff!
- Sharing
Team interaction is a key element of the development process as it helps to work out schedule, brainstorm the blocking issues, and avoid odd efforts. That is why modern IT companies encourage friendly and free communication between staff members. Methods of development process organization Many different software development outsourcing companies developed some organizational techniques. Gradually all that variety had undergone some classification. Today there are lots of books and articles about teambuilding methods in software development. Agile is one of the latest and most commonly adopted types. Agile became widely popular about a decade ago. Flexibility and user-centered approach – that’s what made it so effective. The development process becomes iterative, with each stage of the project closely analyzed. This helps to make corrections to the initial project plan without restarting the whole process. Therefore the team is receiving constant feedback which allows it to adjust to current situation (for example, in case the customer changes his mind). Scrum is most often considered as belonging to the Agile group of methods. Still it is usually referred to as a somewhat separate type. Scrum’s main peculiarities are constant process control and strict division of roles in the project. Main Scrum roles are Project Owner (a customer side representative which is thus made a team member), Scrum Master (similar to a team leader though with less supervising tasks) and Team Member (acting autonomously according to his own schedule mostly). Actually Scrum methodology is making a team of software developers even more decentralized which is helpful for achieving a higher level of ideas exchange. Our Experience Binary Studio has been successfully using Agile Scrum methods in many of its projects. We have made certain achievements in building an atmosphere of richer interaction and freer ideas exchange in our company. We are always open for discussions and knowledge exchange. You can follow our blog and get fresh information about our experience in Scrum and team building. Also, you are always welcome to contact us in case you are interested in getting a trained and united team of software developers for your project.
