How to ensure your development team is truly dedicated?

How to ensure your development team is truly dedicated? A good team is not something that forms on its own. An effective team is not about just having well-experienced developers and working as per the timescale. It forms based on how well they connect and interact with each other. With this, they can deal with the workload faster and eventually reach the project goals in time. It is, however, important to note that the formation phase of a project team always stays crucial to hit the expectations. Next, there are few other factors like commitment, technical expertise, flexibility, etc. that also play quite an effective role in flawless project development. Here, we have brought some significant tips that would help you to ensure if your development team is truly dedicated or not. Conduct an initial screening for the hiring team “When you hire a development team, it is easier to get technical experts and skilled people than a truly dedicated group of employees. So, what should you do? First of all, it is important to conduct an initial screening and interview of the employees. You don't have to make this a traditional interview. Instead, you can conduct this via zoom or other conferencing software. You or your hiring team can access their soft skills and well they can be for your company. Secondly, you can also contact their previous employers and company. You can also check out their LinkedIn profile, to get their background and list of previous clients that you can contact. Lastly, you should start with a small group of the development team so that you can develop a long-term relationship with them.” - Jennifer Willy, Editor at Etia.com Choose leader with excellent interpersonal skills “To make sure your development team is truly dedicated, choose a unifying team leader who's accepted by the majority of the team members. * The team leader determines the effectiveness and dedication of the team members. If they have excellent interpersonal skills, they will rally the team to facilitate dedication.” - Reuben Yonatan, CEO at GetVoIP When your team gives feedback and Ideas “You will know if your development team is dedicated if they give back feedback and ideas and bounce off each other. The following instruction is something that is done on a project that you have no heart for. Developers have to want to see a project do so well and they want to be able to shape it. If they are not looking to shape it and just want to do the bare minimum, have a talk about passion and motivation and see if they are fit for the job.” - Daniel Foley, Founder at Daniel Foley Read More: Common Project Management Mistakes That Every Software Company Should Avoid “In my experience, dedicated employees are usually quite attached to the idea or a specific project they are working on. One way to achieve this is by allowing people to be a part of the creative process. If you just delegate a task and specify exactly how it should be completed, people won’t have the motivation to invest themselves in it. They will simply follow the guidelines and do what they’re told. However, if you allow people to work with you on creating a project by asking for feedback or organizing brainstorming sessions, you are making that a joint effort. Depending on the nature of a project, people will have more or less freedom to participate. However, it’s important that they feel invited to make suggestions or innovate if they want to. As a result, they will be dedicated to the work both individually and as a team.” - Elena Rychyna, PR Manager at AirFocus They make decisions by themselves and align with each other “Dedicated teams can be grown in a corporate culture where they are allowed to make decisions by themselves, execute those decisions, and later, make a retrospective view on it to make corrections. Usually, such a culture appears in companies that practicing Agile methodologies. It's because of short iterations, less bureaucracy, more transparency on the company goals, and more alignment with the top management. For example, those who practice Scrum are not afraid to take responsibility and try something new or make something different. Even if the team made a mistake, it's not that problematic to a roll-back 2-week decision. It's completely different from the Waterfall approach with its 3-6 month milestone. You will have to do a lot of Upfront design when you try to guess a future. And the mistake can become costly. As a result, fewer people and fewer teams ready to take such responsibilities and become autonomous. Another essential detail is Transparency and Alignment. It's a lot easier to provide relevant results when the team knows precisely what the company is trying to achieve. Top management should routinely give this overview to all the employees. And it's easier for a team to meet the deadlines in case company departments are aligned with each other and do not allow immediate requests or urgent goals to overwhelm and put the team into chaos.” - Anton Yarkov, Software Engineer at Access Softek Inc. By judging team’s curiosity about learning new skills “* Advanced Techniques * - You can make sure whether your team is truly committed or not by judging their curiosity about learning new skills. They will surely try to implement new things and techniques in their work. They should stay focused on one project at one time. Staying focused on one project 100% of the time, as dedicated teams do, enhances productivity exponentially. Having a dedicated development team at your action makes your business processes more manageable and easily scalable.” - Brack Nelson, Marketing Manager of Incrementors Web Solution Putting trust and confidence on team “The best way to do it is by putting your trust in them. By making them feel that you have confidence in their abilities, they will reciprocate that by showing you true dedication to their work. They will be more compelled to give back to you for showing them that level of trust.” - David Weingot, owner of DMAC Security   “To ensure your teams’ dedication, be confident in their success, and have them imbibe the same confidence. Sit down with the team and go over the process, potential bumps, and possible solutions. Being prepared for setbacks and bumps will make your team better prepared to handle them when they arise and less likely to lose confidence.” - Laura Fuentes, Operator of Infinity Dish Provide team a chance for progress and success “This works for all teams in a company: give your employees an opportunity for growth and development. Any worker will be more encouraged and dedicated to their work if they know they’re headed somewhere, and not towards a dead end. Provide them a chance for progress and success, and they'll be grateful and show you dedication.” - David Meltzer, Owner of East Insurance Group LLC “First of all, we make sure if they are really passionate about development, this is a hard job and you have to make sure everyone loves what they do. There are multiple other ways to make sure developers are dedicated - making sure you are having every 6 months’ meetings with developers to understand if they are happy and maybe they want to switch to different development languages or projects. Also what we are doing is daily standups, bonuses, weekly and monthly meetings. Overall you have to make sure developers are happy and they receive support and credits for their work - this way you can make them dedicated and productive.” - Kaspars Milbergs, CTO at On The Map, Inc. Searching for Reliable Custom Software Development Company? Contact Now See here   “A great way to measure your team without making them feel like they are being micromanaged and working underneath a microscope is holding brainstorming meetings. You pull the team together for two hours and you brainstorm ways to develop business and grow. Everyone offers input and for the remaining hours you hash out what you would like to try, who will be the lead on which new goal, and how everyone will attack the new goals (one person takes the lead per goal, but everyone is working together on all of them). Then, over the next month, you get to watch them take initiative and work toward their team goals. If every monthly meeting, they are reporting back that their idea flopped, that may be a yellow flag. Plus, for those who are dedicated, you are given a space and time to celebrate them monthly, at the very least (which we all know is great during busy seasons).” - Karen Gordon, from Goodshuffle Pro Conclusion One of the tough tasks for an organization is to form a dedicated team. Just having experienced developers and maintaining professionalism doesn’t help to gain an effective team. It depends on how they interact and maintain relations with each other. Here, in this blog, we have discussed the significant tips and factors that help you to ensure if your development team is truly dedicated or not. With this, you will understand what steps you should take to form a good team.

Kapil Panchal

A passionate Technical writer and an SEO freak working as a Content Development Manager at iFour Technolab, USA. With extensive experience in IT, Services, and Product sectors, I relish writing about technology and love sharing exceptional insights on various platforms. I believe in constant learning and am passionate about being better every day.