Business owners and hiring managers understand that there is a short supply of technical talent. On average, they are taking over two months to fill top technical roles. The difficulty to hire is increasing every year.
The most affected area in the technical field is the software development industry. This is because different industries are continuously racing against time to create consumer applications as well as internal tools to streamline their operations.
This increases the demand for the skills that are needed to drive this transformation, making the management of software development teams crucial to the team’s success. But how can you get the best from your software development team?
Introduce a Reward System
Developing a software application or system that works and meets all requirements takes a lot of time and effort. Developers are required to be skilled and to keep learning due to the changing nature of the languages they use in their line of work.
As a manager, you need to come up with a reward system that recognizes what they do. For instance, you can get personalized plaques and awards for developers who build innovative solutions and meet your requirements.
At the end of the day, you need to make sure that your developers feel appreciated and recognized for what they do. With this, you are going to boost their motivation and get the best from them.
Do Not Assign Non-Technical Tasks To Developers
As a manager, you need to value technical talent. It is in short supply. This means that you do not need to have your developers spending their time handling non-technical tasks. These are tasks you can handle yourself or even hire an assistant for help.
These include things such as peripheral duties, status reports, and administrative tasks, among others. Taking these tasks off your software development team will give them enough time to focus, something that is crucial in boosting productivity.
However, this does not mean that you need to ensure that the development team is spending all their time writing code. They also need to communicate, set targets, and collaborate. You just need to let them do what they were hired to do.
Implement a Standard Software Development Methodology
Experienced software engineers are good for your business. However, they still need some guiding processes and principles to direct their development work. You, therefore, need development methodologies that come with the right frameworks for use in development.
There are different methodologies to choose from, and the one you choose depends on the requirements of your business as well as your clients. Some of the most common ones include the agile and waterfall methodologies.
Some companies thrive with the waterfall method while others with the agile methodology. Some projects are suited for one of the methodologies. You, therefore, need to make sure that you are using a methodology that works for your business and developers as well.
Use Metrics Correctly
As a business owner or manager, you understand the importance of using relevant and accurate measures to access team and individual outcomes. However, this can get a little bit complicated when it comes to software development teams.
This is because of the many metrics that you might have to consider. Writing code comes with multiple statistical insights and a lot of artifacts. This tempts some managers to assess the performance of their teams on multiple metrics.
To get the best from your software development teams, you need to make sure that you are using metrics correctly. For instance, a developer who writes code faster might force you to revise that code later compared to one who takes a longer time. You, therefore, need to use metrics correctly when judging your software developers.
Communicate Requirements
Software development projects need clear requirements for developers to understand what is needed of them. Unfortunately, these requirements tend to go in two directions. Sometimes, some requirements come in deep detail making it difficult for developers to understand what is needed.
On the other hand, you might come across some requirements documentation that is so vague to a point where the final product is very different from what the client needed. As a manager, you need to step in and guide your developers.
Developers are not supposed to be tasked with the responsibility of translating requirements documentation. This will be a bad start to a project and might affect their performance. To get the best from them, make sure you observe requirements management best practices.
Ask Developers for Feedback
Software developers cannot count the number of times they have been given suboptimal, ill-conceived, or even unreasonable project requirements. However, since they are supposed to come up with a solution, their feedback is never considered.
As a manager for a software development team, you need to ask your developers for feedback and insights especially when project requirements are delivered. You can ask for their views and what they think should be done or not done.
This way, they will feel that they are part of the entire process and will look forward to working on different projects for you.
Software development skills are among the most difficult to acquire. As a team manager, you need to make sure that you are getting the best from your developers and do everything you can to keep them for as long as possible.
