As technology continues to advance, humans continue to strive to find ways to get things done faster than ever before with its power. When it comes to software development, speed is everything to both the clients and the development teams. Every organization is under pressure to reduce their time to market to maintain its competitive advantage in the field.
However, speeding up software development isn’t easy – especially for companies that lack the resources necessary to avoid burnout and high turnover rates. This is why nearshore software development companies, such as BairesDev, are a great option when organizations are looking for a way to speed up software delivery.
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The Determining Factors of the Speed of Software Development
There are a few key factors that determine the speed at which a team successfully deploys and releases software.
- Overall Project and Development Complexity Level – Every developer encounters many challenges and difficult situations during the development process. These issues or hurdles are commonly associated with aspects such as complex software architecture, third-party integrations and APIs, project requirements, and structural challenges or mismatches. When teams deal with several of these issues all at once, bottlenecking and slower speeds are more prone to occur.
- Size and Skills of Dev Team – The success of a project is heavily dependent on the efficiency of internal skills. For large teams, this means finding common ground and the most effective method of communication across a large group. For smaller teams, it’s important to find the right amount of employees to get the job done without leaving anyone burnt out. The performance of the team as a whole depends on the contributions of each individual team member. Skilled, experienced, and self-motivated team members get the job done much faster than other teams.
- Code Quality – Writing high-quality code is a time-consuming process when it’s done correctly. When deadlines are tight, devs tend to cut corners and may compromise the quality of the code over time.
How to Speed Up the Software Development Process
There are quite a few ways to help speed up the software development process without compromising on quality and the overall well-being of the developers at work.
- Expand the Team or Look for Third-Party Help – Unfortunately, sometimes the deadline of a project simply doesn’t match its scope. If companies need to increase their bandwidth, they have two options: hire more team members for the in-house team or work with a third-party or nearshore software development company. Staff augmentation with a third-party makes it easy for organizations to find a large number of extra hands for a job, specialized talent, or even an entire team to finish a project.
- Create a Clear Roadmap – If the development team has a clear, concise roadmap or plan for every step of the project ahead, they will know exactly what to do and when to do it. This will save time on deciding what comes next and every team member will have a clear idea of their individual role in the bigger picture. Of course, there will be challenges along the way, but the team will more easily navigate the speedbumps with the map at hand.
- Try Working in Smaller Ways – While working “smaller” sounds counterintuitive to getting things done faster, it’s helpful in the world of development. Sometimes, simply breaking down large, overwhelming pieces of work into smaller tasks creates a highly productive development environment. Also, allowing parts of the dev team to break into smaller groups to problem solve and work on these smaller tasks allows for much more productivity in the long-run while completing the bigger picture.
- Prevent Technical Debt – Technical debt is sometimes used during the development process to speed things up, but isn’t really a good solution for the future. This debt adds up and leads to additional system complexities, which translates into additional dev time. While the team may have the ability to cut corners in the present, they’ll have to deal with the repercussions and fixes in the future. Keeping the technical debt to a minimum is a must and the team should see it as a great resource that has to be used wisely on specific moments.
- Limit the Amount of Work in Progress – The development process becomes much more efficient if there’s a limited amount of active work in progress at any given moment. When there are too many open tasks at a time, work piles up and things get overwhelming for the team members. This not only creates more room for error but also puts extra pressure on the devs. It’s important for employers to figure out their employees’ maximum workload and do their best to ensure that they stay under that level as much as possible.
While it isn’t exactly possible to put the development process into a “maximum overdrive” mode to get projects done at the speed of light, companies can make small changes that will make a huge difference in the long run. These changes not only help make their employees more productive to “speed up” development but also help create a more successful work environment overall.
