How to create a successful Mobile App Development Team

What am I paying for? This is one of the most pressing yet most sensible questions business owners ask when starting a partnership with an IT partner. When you hire developers or an entire mobile app development team, you are paying money, which means you have the right to expect a specific result and understand what you are paying for, which experts will handle your project and why these particular experts. How can you make sure that you have chosen the right iOS and Android development team?

We've put together an article to help you get through these questions. Today you will realize what the structure of the mobile app development team is, what the roles and responsibilities of these professionals are, and how the success of your future app depends on all of this.

Team Size for Successful Agile Software Development

It pays to know that as competition in the market grows and the audience becomes more and more bombarded with offers, the chances of creating a breakthrough app with just one person are extremely slim. You need a dedicated team of app engineers, and often not a small one, but a large team of mobile app developers. Who are all those people and what do they do?

To begin with, today's mobile app development teams often use the Agile project management approach in their work, as it allows them to create in-demand products in an organized manner. At the same time, Agile increases the efficiency and speed of teamwork, because this project management approach allows you to follow the original idea of the application and stay within the given direction, which means that the probability of errors is minimized.

Finally, Agile implies close cooperation with the client, which allows you to be aware of all the events in the development process, track every milestone and know what time and money are spent on. You will know exactly what is being created, not just receive standard progress reports.

Agile also provides for certain roles and responsibilities within the application development team, which may seem very specific and not entirely clear to those who are outside of software development.

Mobile App Development Team: Structure, Responsibilities, Roles

There is no need to assemble a large team of application developers if your tasks can be done by just a few, but niche specialists. These include the following team members:

• Visionary Expert;
• Designers;
• Developers;
• Quality Assurance Engineers;
• Marketing Managers.

Visionary Expert

Visionary is an umbrella term for positions such as project manager, business strategist, business consultant, etc. The task of this team member is to define a product vision and stick to it during the application development process. The vision specialist should be equally savvy in areas such as mobile app development features, development methodology, and, of course, project management.

The key responsibilities and skills of the person in the position of project manager are:

• Technical background;
• An in-depth understanding of the client's business;
• Ability to multi-task while maintaining a high level of productivity;
• Team management skills and the ability to properly motivate technicians;
• Understanding of the scope and boundaries of their responsibilities.

Designers

Those outside of technology may assume that design is not a top priority, but in fact, designers have many tasks, each of which is crucial to the future success of a mobile app.

A mobile app development team can consist of designers with different roles: strategist, visual designer, navigation designer, and content designer.

The work of designers within a mobile app development team takes place in such a sequence:

• Analysis of documentation and requirements;
• Creation of the app navigation principle and the basic ways of interacting with it;
• Work on the appearance of the mobile application, based on the principles of UI/UX.

The UI/UX work is often done in parallel with testing. The meaning of testing is to provide the project to users for trial use, and then to collect feedback for further changes and revisions.

Developers

When UI/UX layouts are ready, they are handed over to Android or iOS developers for further processing and final implementation in the app. Mobile app developers must have the necessary skills to work properly with each platform, viz:

• For iOS - Objective-C/Swift;
• For Android - Java/Kotlin;
• For Windows Phone - C#.

When it comes to cross-platform development, the hard skills requirements are different: C# (Xamarin), JavaScript (React Native), HTML/CSS/JavaScript (PhoneGap and Cordova).

The team can be small, but it should be cohesive and dynamic, with profound knowledge in their domain. In addition to hard skills, mobile app developers must have a certain set of soft skills, such as flexibility, critical thinking, and the desire to create the highest quality product and constantly improve it.

Quality Assurance Engineers

Before a product is handed over to customers and users, its quality is checked by QA engineers, who are the very first and, frankly, the most critical audience. They compare the capabilities of the product and the functions it performs to the original specifications, and then decide if the product is ready to go to market. But not only are QA engineers tasked with finding defects, they also provide the team with options and ways to improve the product, as well as the rationale for those improvements.

Marketing Managers

The marketing team includes marketers, copywriters, and sales representatives. It is these team members who help convert the product into profit: they create promotional materials, write selling texts, and develop and implement strategies to promote and sell the product. Adding marketers to the mobile app development team is a natural, sensible and inevitable step, after all - why create a mobile app if you don't promote it and make money from it, right? Honestly, this is exactly how work on a mobile app should start - not with development, but with market demand analysis, so marketers are the experts without whom technical specialists cannot succeed in their work.

How to Hire the Dedicated App Development Team in Ukraine

As the demand for mobile apps grows - and it does, given the growing number of smartphones worldwide and the trend toward using mobile apps for every task - the need for skilled mobile app developers also grows. The 'There's an app for that' situation is in action. If you want your app to be developed by experienced app developers, how about hiring a dedicated team of mobile app developers from Ukraine? Today, when remote work is no longer a fad but a forced measure, hiring a dedicated team of engineers seems especially reasonable. But, of course, it's worth taking a closer look at how they can help you.

In mobile app development, there are usually three areas: Android, iOS, and hybrid apps. Which of these directions interests you the most? Find out what the answer to that question is. According to Statista, as of 2020, there were 4.7 billion Internet users worldwide, 4.3 of whom were unique mobile Internet users. Even Google has had to change its approach to SEO requirements for pages, and mobile-first indexing now reigns supreme.

The number of user transactions with mobile devices has increased so much - especially the number of online purchases - that the competition for the right mobile app developers is only growing.

So that you can hire the most suitable mobile app development engineers, we provide full support - from comprehensive advice on your requests to full-scale involvement of technical talents in your project.

With our approach, you get developers who:

• Have the qualifications you need;
• Fluent in English;
• Have in-depth knowledge of your business through their work in relevant niches;
• Have additional skills, such as those that can strengthen your project and make it stand out from the competition.

We take a personalized approach to finding and hiring the right candidates. We look at not only the experience and qualifications of the technicians, but also whether they can be a full part of your team and share your values and approach to work.

What are the advantages of working with a dedicated mobile app development team from Ukraine?

There are several of them:

• Reasonable budget distribution. This is not the first priority point, but it is reasonable to consider it, because the services provided by developers from Eastern Europe are more cost-effective than those of their counterparts from Western Europe and the USA. Data on the mobile app developer salaries in the world are presented below.
• Time savings. Indeed, by delegating to your IT partner the task of finding and hiring the mobile app developers you need, you can spend that time on more business-oriented and strategic matters.
• Highly qualified experts in the field you're interested in. Why hire regular mobile app developers when you can hire experienced, smart mobile app developers who are constantly improving their skills? Let's face it, it makes a lot more sense to hire professional programmers from the get-go and be sure of the quality of your future application than to hire those who aren't right for you, trying to save time and money.
• Seamless interaction. Since Ukrainian mobile developers are fluent in English, responsible and subordinate, and their mentality is close to Western culture, you will get them as reliable partners.

How Much Does it Cost to Hire a Mobile App Development Team?

It goes without saying that salary matters a lot, so we have prepared for you a general cross-section of the average salaries of key app development team members from Ukraine and other countries.

Average Mobile App Developer Salary in the World

Below is a list of only the most key specialists, without whom the development of a mobile app would not be possible.

But for the mobile app development team to be effective, it should include all the people capable of creating a full-fledged app for its further successful promotion in the relevant market segment.

How to Build an iOS/Android Development Team: Crucial Things to Consider

These are the conditions that must be met to build a strong team of mobile app developers who can do their best.

Matching Proficiency

Experienced developers and designers are likely to prefer a project manager with the same knowledge and skills as they do. For them to work effectively, it is important to clearly set goals and objectives and to quickly navigate the process. On the other hand, there should be good interaction between developers and QA engineers, since the roles and responsibilities of the former and the latter involve a mutual critical eye on each other's work, and so feedback should be given as intelligently and respectfully as possible.

Process Transparency

Although the development process must be controlled and strictly regulated, collaboration between sub-teams within one large application development team with clearly defined roles and responsibilities is also necessary. A situation in which development participants are unaware of the scope of the project or are outside the scope of the goals should not be tolerated. Each team member needs to understand his or her role and scope of tasks, and be informed of the slightest change in the project work.

Mutual Respect

When it comes to teamwork, there are no more or less important roles or tasks. Each team member's contribution is important to the overall result, so there are no situations where one person's responsibilities or scope of tasks are perceived by colleagues, the client, and others as insignificant or as easy to perform or speed up just because someone thinks so.

Mutual respect between team members, as well as between the team and the client, is the way to go, the guarantee of a healthy atmosphere on the project and, as a result, of effective work.

No "RockStar" Developers

Their expertise can be invaluable to your project, but not indispensable. Choose those iOS and Android app developers who have enough experience and contribute to team cohesion. The cohesion of the team members will help in achieving your goals. As practice shows, a rock-star developer will strive to shine, overshadowing the project itself.

Make It Agile

Encourage the mobile app development process to be agile, which, on one hand, allows you to control the process and, on the other hand, helps the team stay goal-oriented. Agile management implies that the mobile app development process should be carried out according to a sequence of actions, achieving measurable metrics and performance metrics.

How to Manage App Development Team

Along with the question of how to hire a mobile app development team, the question of managing that team is acute. How do you get a team of specialists, who - let's be honest - may not even see each other or you, to work cohesively and achieve shared goals? The project manager is that member of your development team who is responsible for creating and maintaining the team spirit, so that there is no crisis in the team and that for self-sufficient professionals the authority of senior colleagues and the customer is preserved. We've gathered those mobile app development team management tips that can make a difference.

Well-defined goals

Clear goals and deadlines should be set for the mobile app development team, and they should be publicly available so that every new team member can access them. Setting clear goals is probably the first place to start when you're fine-tuning your mobile app development process.

What Drives Your Mobile App Developers?

No matter how attractive the working conditions in the team may be, each specialist still has his or her personal motivation to work. And it's not just about the money. Some want to see their name next to the name of an outstanding project, some want to experiment or generate crazy ideas - so there is a great risk that in your team of mobile app developers there will be specialists with different goals and motivations. The task of the project manager and the customer is to find out what motivates the specialists to provide them with the desired working conditions and get the desired product as a result.

Among the things that drive technicians are also providing the necessary work equipment and opportunities for your designers and developers to test new online tools and platforms and experiment with ideas, even if it has nothing to do with your main project.

One way or another, the professional development of one technician contributes greatly to the success of an entire project.

One-on-one Meetings

This may not seem to be of great importance and may therefore be underestimated by the customer, but it is the project manager's responsibility to work closely with team members. During one-on-one meetings, both offline and online, the project manager can find out possible bottlenecks, find out what is bothering each specialist and how the team can help them, so that a good working atmosphere is established in the team to help work effectively on the mobile app.

Keep Everyone Informed

Project status reports should be shared among team members, and the project manager is responsible for this exchange. Each team member and stakeholder should receive information only in a way that is relevant and valuable to them.

Keep It Consistent

It pays to be consistent in every work issue, such as not focusing on some issues to the detriment of others. If you promised to resolve an issue or discuss a problem by a certain time, you must keep your promise. It should be clear to the team how best to communicate with you on work issues, and, of course, the team should be able to rely on you.

Insight on App Developers' Skills Set

You don't have to be technically savvy to hire professional mobile app developers. It is enough to carefully study the skills and experience of developers and designers to get an idea of what you can expect from them, what else they can help you with. Understanding the skills of each specialist will simplify the distribution of responsibilities, help you manage your time better, and optimize the work within your team.

Let It Flow

Managers tend to control everything and help even where help might hurt. To effectively manage a mobile app development team, managers and all stakeholders must loosen their grip and trust their team more. Constantly trying to manage and dominate can only ruin teamwork and results. Trust your team members more, make them feel valued for the project, and set an example with your behavior: stick to agreements, write first-class tickets, be accountable, and explain the reasons for your decisions and actions, thereby showing respect for the team.

Encourage Learning and Development

Find out each team member's professional development goals, what they are striving for, what they want to learn, in what time frame, and how it will help your project. If the professional development of your team members promises to be beneficial to you, find out how you can teach them new skills and knowledge and what budget is needed to do so. Support your team members' educational initiatives and desires by agreeing on specific budgets for this purpose.

Make It Supportive

Last but not least, support your employees no matter what work they have done. Software development is hard work, and the result is not always obvious to everyone. For example, someone on the team made a helpful suggestion, gave a promising idea, or otherwise brought novelty and usefulness to the project - in this case, let the staff know that you see all the efforts of your development team members and appreciate each of them. Don't remain silent, encourage and support, and it will pay you back.

Bottom Line

When it comes to the mobile app development team, the first thing to pay attention to is the skills and experience of the technical specialists, since without proper technical background you can hardly count on getting a professionally executed and marketable mobile app. Along with technical aspects, the structure of the mobile app development team and the distribution of roles and responsibilities between its members are also taken into account. Neglecting these aspects can lead to mistakes and even complete failure. And vice versa - respecting each team member for their experience and contribution to the common cause, adhering to the work schedule, and prioritizing tasks should ultimately pay off with a quality product, completed on time and according to requirements.