To choose between having a complete project scope or to hire an Agile team can be hard and represents a big challenge for many companies that are starting to grow and escalate tech projects. To help you make a smart choice, we have gathered some topics you should consider when choosing between one or the other.
Hiring your Agile team
If your company has a monthly custom software budget or is willing to have flexibility in terms of deliverability, perhaps hiring an Agile team will be the best option.
Agile teams will offer shorter objective developing cycles, that will not necessarily achieve the expected results in detail. On the other hand, the flexibility of Agile development offers you the chance to adapt the initial expected solution to something even better. Click here to understand Agile development with more details.
Software companies and start-ups, for example, usually have a dedicated monthly software budget and the flexibility to adapt this budget and their initial design. They will prefer to hire an Agile squad to meet their flexible and fast go-to-market culture.
When to choose close ended software projects
On the other hand, if you rather be sure about how much a project will cost and clear definition of a long-term project, you might prefer to have a close ended software project instead of hiring an Agile team.
Generally, this is more common in large corporations, where the general culture is more traditional and requires different levels of approval by executives to move on with a project. To do so, they will need complex information about the necessary budget, comparison between different suppliers, deliverables, among other information that only a close-ended project will offer.
Which one is better?
As previously explained, both models are valid and will depend on the company’s culture, budget, timeline and expected outcomes.
With Agile teams you can achieve more speed and flexibility. You will have an exclusive team to handle your project and they will be available for all your demands. On the other hand, the organization might have unachieved expectations about the development results since there is not a long-term plan.
On a close-ended project, executives and project managers will have a higher certainty and security on the entire developing cycle. Thanks to that stability, there is a lack of flexibility to change the scope of the project, if necessary. Additionally, you will need to invest a consider amount of time to plan and design the entire project. It can go from 1 to 4 months, depending on the magnitude of the scope.
To sum up, the best choice is:
- Agile team if you have different software demands that require faster speed.
- Close-ended project if your organization has time to plan and design the scope ahead.
- Agile team if there is an urgent need but also uncertainty about the expected outcome.
- Close-ended project if you must be sure about the required budget and gather executive approval.
If you are still in doubt about what is the best direction, talk to one of our consultants to discuss the best approach for your tech project. Or directly request a quote for your close-ended project or Agile team.