The Extended Team Model: A New Way to Grow Your Business

What Is The Extended Team Model?

The extended team model is where you augment additional team members to your in-house team. The extended team members help the internal team complete different objectives as well as core business operations.

Since the extended team model isn’t project-based, the team cooperation doesn’t end after the end of any project. Instead, it’s an ongoing collaboration model to increase the efficiency of the workforce by attaching external specialized professionals.

Though there’s no specific and perfect definition for the extended team model, there are a couple of specifics that make it different from other outsourcing models:

• The goal of an extended team is to augment the in-house staff
• Extended team grants more control over the project
• All responsibilities are distributed evenly between the in-house team members and the extended team members.

When Should You Hire An Extended Team?

There are quite a few scenarios that warrant the presence of an extended team within your business:

• You have future plans for expanding your operations while the in-house team updates your products
• The project is unusual for your company, and your in-house team isn’t equipped to handle it
• You want to recruit people specializing in niche skills that aren’t available in the local market
• Pricing for the skills you’re looking for on the local market is unreasonable
• You need to replace a team member as soon as possible
• You need as many tech talent as possible on your team for your current project
• You need an additional workforce to finish before the deadline
• You are a rather new business owner who isn’t an expert in hiring

Benefits of The Extended Team Model

1. Gives You Access To International Talent Pool

The extended team model allows you to add more members to your team from anywhere around the world. When you can choose the required talent from an international market, you simply have more options to choose from in order to make the right adjustments to your team.

2. The Hiring Process Can Match Your Desire

As mentioned in the earlier section, the extended team model is best for any business owner who doesn’t have additional departments handling the employee hiring procedure and isn’t a hiring expert.

Even then, you can take part in the hiring process with your vendor to monitor and screen the right potential candidates.

3. The Developers Are Highly Motivated And Interested

Extended team members are highly specialized individuals who are glad to be part of a new experience by joining an organization as an extended team member. They also do their best in every project to uphold the reputation of themselves as well as their vendor.

What’s more important is that extended team members aren’t distracted with any other work, unlike typical outsourcing vendors who have to juggle multiple projects at the same time.

With the extended team model, all the team members are giving their 100% for your project to reach completion.

4. Resource Management Becomes Flexible & Transparent

You don’t have to wait for any intermediary when you’re collaborating with an external team. You can directly communicate with them about your requirements and other specifications. The team then describes their resource requirements, and you can provide them accordingly.

All extended team members operate on a basis of building high levels of loyalty and trust that can help you monitor the performance of each individual.

5. The Payment Model Is Transparent & Efficient

Extended teams work on a monthly payment model. This payment includes:

• Developer Salary
• Operational expenses
• Bonuses
• Incentives
• Additional tech stack cost (when necessary)

The vendor always takes care of the payroll for extended teams, allowing you to focus on your business activities.

6. The Setup And Operation Process Is Very Accessible

Extended team vendors offer all sorts of operational processes and team setups when you sign a contract for onboarding new members. Most vendors even offer the required tech stack that the team members can use to assist in your operations.

7. Helps You Start With Higher Scalability

The extended team model allows easy onboarding of additional team members, so it’s very easy to upscale your team at any given time when taking on a large-scale project.

Extended team members can stay on the team even when the project is done to assist with other business operations if needed. Otherwise, you’re free to relieve teammates whose services are no longer required.

The high amount of scalability and team flexibility is what makes the idea more appealing to companies that are following agile practices.

8. The Workload Gets Shared

With an extended team, you have more team members working on a certain set of objectives. When you have more members in a single team that is geared towards a single task, you have more members to distribute tasks in between.

When more people are working towards the same goal, the workflow gets optimized and there are fewer errors after detailed scrutiny from all team members before submission.

9. Removes Conflict of Interest

When both the internal and external team is under the management of a single entity, the decision-making process becomes much more streamlined. When everyone in the team is on the same page, there’s no conflict of interest among the team members, and the business proceedings are more streamlined.

10. The Teams Are fully Cooperative

All extended team members are experts in their industry who have a heavy portfolio of experience working with high-end organizations and have vivid knowledge of the best work practices.

They understand the importance of complete cooperation and collaboration, and it makes each team member highly cooperative.

Steps To Extended Team Integration

1. Create Your Plan

You need to start by defining all your current objectives and the scope of your project. Though you can perform an initial analysis by yourself, you can also get help from professional technology consultancies like Impala Intech.

2. Screen The Candidates

Once you’ve determined the project scope and narrowed down your requirements, it’s time to choose the professionals you want as part of your extended team. During the recruitment process, you can join the vendors in the screening process to create a list of potential candidates.

3. Proceed To Onboard And Integrate Members

After you’ve found your potential candidates, you can now contact and discuss with each candidate to determine how they can contribute to your team the most. After making the final selection, let your vendor know about your desired team members and sign the necessary contracts to get started with the team.

In most cases, the vendors take care of the onboarding process so you can focus on integrating the new members according to their roles with the internal team.

4. Ensure On-Demand Scaling And Support Is Available

Now that the operation is in full swing, contact the vendor and ensure that you can upscale and downscale your team whenever the need arises to suit your business needs. Since the extended team model is highly flexible, you’ll be able to scale your team easily.

The vendor will also provide support with the necessary tech stack to support the current project the extended team is working on.

To Wrap It All Up

Team extension is a great medium for businesses to bring in expertise in their relevant industries within an affordable budget and ease of recruitment process. It doesn’t just allow businesses to save time and resources, it also gives a business a competitive edge by allowing them to be on par with enterprise-level businesses with the right expertise on their team.

Planning to extend your team and looking for a trusted partner? Impala Intech can offer you a wide range of professionals to choose from, as well as provide complete support for the scalability and maintenance of your extended team for maximum efficiency.

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