Our main challenge was the verification process on the agency side as well as on the client’s end. In the beginning, it took really long; it consisted of several stages, including pair programming sessions. Ultimately, after six months of cooperation, we managed to shorten it to two stages in total, taking three hours per candidate. This accelerated the onboarding of new developers in projects by 260%.
Another challenge was customer developer turnover. To avoid this we took time to carefully analyze the soft skills and competencies of our developers, and we have adjusted the entire team for over a year. Thanks to this, the programmer fluctuation is 5% per year. We believe that careful evaluation of clients’ needs and their work culture helped here. It was not an easy task, but in our opinion quality always comes before quantity.
To provide the best possible IT staff augmentation services the arrangement of the team structure between two agencies was also one of our priorities. Several of our tech leads along with several from the partner agency, supplemented by developers from both agencies, had to cooperate and contribute their skills. In order to do so properly, we introduced a Team Design workshop to efficiently organize teams consisting of two agencies. Thankfully, with our workshop experience, it went well and helped us organize work for the dev teams.
When you cooperate together with someone for a long period, it is crucial to establish a common work culture. Applover’s developers teamed up with the agency’s, and they started by meeting each other on joint daily and standups which were not only dedicated for their project but for the client’s entire company. This allowed even our HR and Sales and Marketing teams to integrate and cooperate with each other.
