How to build a successful team of remote developers

Introduction

You would be unaware of this? Remote work has not only changed the way of working but it has also boosted the productivity of the team. 

In one of the recent surveys, it was found that 44% of the employees who are doing their job from home believe that remote work mode has impacted them positively and they can meet deadlines easily. 

Additionally, another 64% of survey respondents exclaimed that remote work has brought a significant change in their productivity.

Now, before diving deep into knowing how to develop a successful remote startup development team let’s understand what the term Remote Team means?

What is a Remote Team?

A remote team as the name suggests is a team of professionals which is located in various parts of the world. Here, professionals from different regions collaborate virtually to develop software or an application.

Unlike traditional in-house teams, Remote teams use collaboration tools to communicate and work together from a remote location by using technology to achieve the set goals.

Let’s understand some of the Pros and Cons of a Remote Team

Hiring Remote Team: It’s Pros

• Access to Global Talent:- As the team is fully remote we get the chance to hire professional talent from across the globe.

• Increased Flexibility:- As the remote team can work from anywhere, it allows the team to reduce the cost of having a physical office setup.

• Cost savings:- Having a remote team is a big cost-saving technique as it reduces the overhead costs of the employees as they are working totally from a remote location.

• Reduced Commute time:- As the developer's team is set up remotely it reduces the commute time and hence allows the team to work more productively.

Pros and Cons are two sides of the same coin and with every pro, there are its cons present. Let’s understand the Cons of hiring a Remote team

What are the Cons of hiring a Remote Team?

• Communication challenges:- Remote teams can face communication barriers due to differences in time zones and language barriers.

• Collaboration Difficulties:- Due to a lack of face-to-face interaction, collaboration may become difficult as building trust can prove to be a difficult task.

After understanding the in-depth Pros and Cons of hiring a Remote team let’s understand How can you build a remote team.

How to build a Remote Software Development Team?

Want to hire remote developers? If yes then following the below process will help you find the most suitable fit.

1. Hire a Competent Project Manager: This is the first step to implement while hiring an efficient remote team. Working on software development projects can become a complex task when working remotely. That’s why having a Project Manager is necessary.

A PM keeps the team focused, they are also responsible for listening to the customers, providing guidelines about the project, and delegating the work accordingly lastly they are the one who communicates about the project with the Remote team.

1. Hiring a Competent team: Hiring a competent team is the need of every organization. If you are on the hunt to hire competent remote developers,t then you need to consider the below points.

• Professional ethics: While hiring remote professionals we always ensure that they are meeting the professional ethics required for the work.

• Decision-Making capabilities: Professionals with efficient decision-making power can be a good fit while building a competent team..

• Technical Skills: Hiring a remote professional without proper technical skills is a waste of money and time, choose the professional who possesses the right technical skill set

• Familiarity with Development tools and skills: A professional who has the right knowledge of all the relevant tools and skills required for a project makes a very good team.

1. Setting up Systems and Structures: While you hire remote developers make sure you are having proper system and structure in place. When hiring a remote team, firstly on geographical locations followed by the second step i.e. setting organizational structures which includes functions like business operations, legal, finance operations, etc.

2. Communicate effectively: Having a proper communication system is very necessary in a remote team. Focus on the below points to hire efficient remote developers.

• Communication with customers: As software development has a degree of abstraction it is necessary to have efficient developers who can interact with customers frequently to understand their needs and wants.

• Cultural differences: This is a very critical point to consider when hiring a remote developer team. As professionals follow different cultures and languages, building a communication system keeping their language and culture in mind should be a go-to strategy.

• Project-related communication: Setting up project-related communication is very necessary throughout the duration of the project as it will help in rectifying and solving any barriers or queries that occur during the execution of the project work.

• Organization-related communication: Making sure that all the team members are aware of the mission, vision, and goals to be achieved is very necessary and that’s why having communication related to the organization is important.

1. Setup appropriate Metrics:- Having proper metrics to measure and evaluate work is very necessary while building a remote team. Not focusing on this point can cause problems in understanding and deciding the success of a project.

2. Focus on leadership:- As traditional Indian Tea is incomplete without Sugar in the same way a team of professionals is incomplete without a dedicated team leader. Choosing a dedicated member who has the right skill set to implement their leadership skills to achieve project deliverables is very important.

As only a leader with the right understanding of leadership skills, goals, vision and mission of the project can lead their team to achieve the success.

After understanding how to build a remote development team let’s understand what are the roles and responsibilities of a remote team.

Remote Team: Roles and Responsibilities

The common roles in a remote development team consist of the following:-

1. Developers: Developers are present at every stage of the development process, starting from coding to deployment. They implement their technical skills to concert project requirements into a functioning software application. Their responsibilities are as under:-

• Writing code as per the requirements and design specifications.

• Collaborating with other team members to solve bugs and technical challenges if any.

• Conducting timely code reviews and debugging processes to ensure high-quality project deliverables.

• Staying up to date with the latest updates about programming languages and frameworks.

1. Testers/ QA Engineers: They are the most important members of a team. Their role is to validate and check whether the software meets all the functional as well as non-functional requirements described in the project documentation. Their responsibilities are as under:-

• They are responsible for developing test cases, plans and test scripts.

• They need to conduct functional and performance testing of the software.

• They also need to identify and report any errors and defects found during the testing process.

1. Project Manager: Project Managers look into the planning, execution and successful completion of the project. Their main responsibility is to collaborate with the team to achieve the project objectives. There are few other responsibilities of a project manager which are as under

• They need to plan the project timelines, milestones and deliverables.and also need to assign the tasks and manage the resources optimally.

• Overseeing the project progress and checking the adherence to quality deliverables of the project.

After understanding the roles and responsibilities the next step is to understand the structure and system of a remote team.

What are the Common Structures and Systems of a Remote Development Team

There are three remote development structures based on various aspects like how team members are organized, and collaborated towards the projects.

1. Generalist Structure: The team members in this structure possess broad skill sets and they can adapt various roles and responsibilities throughout the execution of the project.

2. Specialist Structure: As the name suggests this kind of structure comprises members who have specialized skills to deliver quality projects.

3. Hybrid Structure: As the name itself suggests, this structure is a blend of both generalist and specialist structure wherein the composition of the team is a mix of both members with special skills as well as members with broad skill sets.

Based on the project requirements a Remote Team can use any structure that fits the best with their purpose and goal.

Let’s discuss the most important point to be considered while Building a Remote team i.e. “Communication”

Communication is the most important process in achieving any goal successfully. Let’s understand key pointers to be kept in mind to build effective communication between remote teams.

1. Arrange regular interactions and meetups

2. Invest in Communication Infrastructure

3. Develop sensitivities towards cultural differences & privacy

The above pointers can help any remote team to have smoother communication and coordination.

The Conclusion

Hiring a dedicated team of remote resources can lead you to achieve quality results towards converting a project into software, not only this it can also help you cut on cost and ensure you are getting the right workforce to meet the deadlines.