We love to embrace the Agile methodology when running our projects at Somar Digital. While we’ve been doing it for years we’re always trying to refine and improve how we approach Agile. Our teams also happen to be small which we think benefits the speed and quality of work that we do for our clients. Here are a few ways that we think having small agile teams benefits the digital products we design and build.
Transparency
A smaller team means that it’s easier for clients to get oversight into how the project is tracking. Having a daily standup with the team helps our clients feel like they’re super involved with the direction of the project and because the team is small can get any questions answered easily. It can be harder to get a clear picture of how the project is tracking with a larger team because it can be too time-consuming to keep track of everyone.
Team Efficiency
It's easier for the team to be self-organized, which is a big part of the Agile methodology. Because it’s a small team everybody knows where everyone else in the team stands and what they are responsible for. The bigger the team grows means that there is a higher chance of too many spinning plates and aspects of the project falling between the cracks. We’ve worked on a number of large-scale projects at Somar Digital, including Metlink, the public transport website and app for the Wellington region, and have never felt the need to expand the team working on the project to any more 4 or 5 people.
More Agile
A smaller team means that there are fewer barriers for team members to get through in order for things to get done. In theory, a big team could get more work done per sprint but it also means that meetings are going to be longer, discussions are going to be longer and it’s just going to take longer for everyone to work together. We typically only have two developers on any given project and because they’re sitting next to each other they simply talk to each other and work things out on the go. We try to put together a team with complementary skill sets which means we’re able to get through a lot of work.
Team Motivation and Buy-in
Any successful project requires team motivation and buy-in. Small teams are able to see the impact of the work they are doing as opposed to being a small cog in a large machine. This means that our team is more invested in the work they do and are more likely to put out high-quality work. Our team really cares about the work they do for clients which makes a big impact on the overall quality. That goes some way to explaining why we have such good relationships with our clients.
Conclusion
There are a lot of companies that say that they are Agile but at Somar Digital we genuinely practice what we preach. Everyone in our team evangelizes the Agile Methodology as we have proven success running projects this way.
For companies and organisations that haven’t worked in Agile before we try to make the process as painless as possible when we’re onboarding new clients so that we can hit the ground running when a project begins.
If you want to find out more about how we run Agile projects feel free to click on the link below!
