24/04/2023 
What we call “Technical staff augmentation” is the process of hiring external technical resources to augment or supplement a company’s existing staff. This approach is being used increasingly by companies all over the world in order to meet their technical staffing needs, in today’s rapidly changing business environment. With technology evolving at a breakneck pace, they need to stay agile and adaptable to remain competitive.
At TechQuarter we have a long history of offering composable services such as team augmentation, external technical leadership, project based collaborations with clients across different regions and industries.
In this two part series we will explore the benefits and challenges of this type of collaboration (Part 1) and what are some of the best practices guidelines that companies can follow to ensure they make the most of it (Part 2).
The Benefits of Technical Staff Augmentation
First, let’s dive into the benefits of this type of collaboration and what it could mean for your enterprise:
Increased flexibility: By using technical staff augmentation, you can be more flexible in your staffing needs. You can work on a project-by-project basis, scale up or down as needed, and avoid the costs associated with maintaining a large in-house staff.
Reduced costs: Hiring external resources can save you money on recruiting, training, and maintaining an in-house staff. You can also avoid the costs of providing benefits, such as health insurance and retirement plans.
Access to specialized expertise: Technical staff augmentation provides you with access to specialized expertise that you may not have in-house. This can include expertise in emerging technologies, specialized software applications, or industry-specific knowledge.
Enhanced productivity and efficiency: By hiring external resources, you can increase your productivity and efficiency by bringing in fresh perspectives and new ideas. You can also leverage the expertise of external resources to improve your existing processes and systems.
Faster time-to-market: Technical staff augmentation enables you to quickly ramp up your staffing levels to meet the demands of a project. This can help you bring products and services to market faster, giving you a competitive advantage.
What about the challenges of augmenting your technical team?
While technical staff augmentation offers many benefits, we cannot ignore that there are also some challenges that you need to keep on your radar. From our own experience in providing technical team augmentation services, we’ve identified 3 main challenges that you may face in the process of choosing such a partner.
1.Ensuring cultural fit and finding the right talent
The success of your technical staff augmentation program also depends on the cultural fit between them and your company. Take a look at their values, work style, and communication preferences to ensure they align with yours. You can also ask for testimonials of different clients by asking for key-people’s opinion on specific aspects of their collaboration. Think outside the box and don’t be afraid to be too thorough in the analysis phase.
Take a look at this quick 4-steps strategy to help you find the right technical partner: Finding the right talent in technical staff augmentation
2.The pitfalls of mismanaging communication and collaboration
Think of what communication channels work best for your context, at what frequency should you engage and check in regularly to make sure these processes work for both ends from the very beginning. The smoother the communication process, the easier and seamless the integration with your team will be.
3. Maintaining quality standards
Ensuring that the quality of work produced by your new colleagues meets the company’s standards is critical. To maintain quality standards, companies need to be clear about their expectations and provide training to ensure the external teams are equipped with the necessary skills to meet those standards. Additionally, regular performance evaluations and feedback can help identify areas for improvement and ensure that quality standards are consistently met.
The common denominator in all of them is having a clear understanding of your scope and setting the right expectations clearly around it as early as possible in the collaboration. We’ll address all these challenges in the second part of this article – The Expert’s Guide to Technical Team Augmentation Part II: Best Practices.
If you’re interested in learning more about how we approach technical staff augmentation and how we’ve helped other companies exceed their goals with this approach drop us a line below, we’d be happy to partner up and guide you through your digital transformation journey.
