Top 5 IT Staff Augmentation Best Practices to Ensure Project Success

Each project has its specific requirement and it depends on the team and their capabilities whether they can match the expected results. This is why most businesses fail to deliver their projects as demanded.

This situation needs a solution and IT staff augmentation provides them with a way to manage their work and reduce the load of unfinished work. However, businesses must understand what is required to build a team with experts.

They need to consider some steps and procedures allowing them to face fewer issues and make quick progress. So, are you concerned about what to apply when you hire or build a team?

Read on to find out the top best practices for IT staff augmentation to ensure project success.

1. Understand the Knowledge & Skill Gaps

According to a survey conducted by Career Builder, it was revealed that 45% of employers are concerned over the loss of productivity due to unskilled teams. This brings you to a crucial step: to check your existing team for knowledge and skill gaps.

This requirement is the key reason most projects fail to reach their destination. Thus, companies must clarify where and what the team lacks. It gives them an understanding to hire experts with set criteria, allowing them to improve productivity and project delivery rate.

Also, businesses should check the team size required to meet the project specifications before the deadline passes. Urgent or short-span projects require a bigger team to ensure other works in queues are not affected and companies can deliver on time as promised.

Remember, every project has its deadline and the target is to deliver without exceeding the given time frame. Hence, hiring an external team should be based on the thorough insight of your team.

2. Legal and Compliance Considerations

A successful business proposition follows legalities, not just values the interests of the involved companies. The companies must ensure they hire or outsource staff using lawful steps and the listed aspects can help them:

• Legal Contracts & Agreements: The agreements disclose conditions like resource requirements, payment regularities, project tenure, and other responsibilities both parties fulfill. This helps to avoid misunderstandings and conflicts during the project.
• Industry-Specific Compliance: While seeking augmented staff from another company, businesses must ensure the employees adhere to the industrial requirements. It can differ from industry to industry so it is necessary to perform this inspection.

Hiring staff from an external source should be legally processed. This approach clarifies both companies over various aspects, making it easier for them to work collaboratively.

3. Data Security Measurements

Companies are highly receptive when it comes to securing their sensitive information. When businesses outsource employees, it questions the company’s capabilities to avoid situations like data breaches. Companies must act to preserve their classified information.

Implementing or considering the below-listed security measures can help:

• Limiting Informational Access: Data breaches can lead to reputational damage, legal disputes, or customer loss. Businesses can consider applying data access limitations based on work profiles and project requirements to prevent such situations.
• Applying Non-Disclosure Agreements (NDAs): NDA binds the outsourced personnel into legal obligations restricting them from transferring or sharing the sensitive data to a third party head.
• Adding Encryption Codes: Encrypting the data servers adds another layer of security to the business’s data. The encryption protects the sensitive data while in transit and at rest, denying access to unauthorized staff members.

Businesses must focus on completing their projects but aspects like data safety and security are also important. Effective measures should be in place to prevent cyber-attacks and other problematic scenarios.

4. Ethical Standards and Cultural Fit

Businesses should remain vigilant and sincere in offering a positive environment to the augmented staff. Through some initiatives and practices, companies can prevent any unethical misconduct inside the premises between the teams:

• Implement Fair Treatment: Ethical values in an organization bring equal and fair treatment regardless of dissimilarity due to race, gender, and color. The company should employ a positive work culture delivering fair treatment based on the work.
• Intolerance for Discrimination: IT staff augmentation services allow businesses to bring employees from different backgrounds. However, businesses should not entertain any discrimination activity based on race, ethnicity, or affinity.
• Culturally Fit Employees: The external workforce should work on equal terms with the internal team and with fewer cultural differences, it is easy to manage. Businesses must ensure the outsourced personnel share the same or similar cultural relations.

5. Implement Team Collaboration Exercises

Better connection in the team helps to complete the project on time. Though the external workforce may come from a different background, businesses can develop better relationships among the team members through various practices:

• Effective Communication Channels: Coordination exists when internal and external teams communicate properly. Businesses should develop transparent and clear communication channels for both teams to transfer information fluently.
• Knowledge Sharing Sessions: The reason behind bringing an external workforce can be knowledge or expertise absence. Thus, businesses can allow both teams to interact with each other and exchange information in knowledge-sharing sessions.
• Team-Building Activities: Aside from regular meetings, companies can initiate activities seeking both teams’ involvement. Short coffee breaks, or fun activities, to a weekend pizza party, are a few ways team collaboration can be strong.

Conclusion

The absence of expertise and knowledge forces the organization’s hands to meet the project expectations. Since it affects progress, IT staff augmentation services offers an advanced solution where businesses can easily cover this gap. However, the new and existing teams should work hand-in-hand to match what’s required in the project.

The above-discussed best practices can help businesses develop better teamwork and joining hands with us can help you find skillful and experienced professionals to deliver results as expected.