Reliable and efficient Drupal developer staff augmentation

In one of our previous blog posts, we already described what staff augmentation is. Now, I would like to take you through some key benefits of using staff augmentation for the outsourcing strategy for Drupal agencies.

Immediate availability

One of the key reasons Drupal agencies decide to outsource work to other teams is the shortage of in-house resources in specific skillset. It is mostly challenging to hire and onboard an experienced Drupal developer on a short notice. 

At AGILEDROP we make our developers available to start with the work two days after inquiry. This enables our clients to act fast in cases where they would normally fail projects and lose reputation with their customers.

Proven quality

As a web development company ourselves, we are fully aware of challenges of recruiting developers. Equipped with all CVs, portfolios and online profiles we are still doing a leap of faith every time we hire a new person to join our Drupal team. But after a couple of weeks, we know if this developer fits in our company or not.

When clients hire our developers, they eliminate the risk of doing a bad hire. We only let vetted developer work with our staff augmentation partners. First, we make sure they are fully onboard and follow all of the standards and best practice in the Drupal.

 

Scaling potential

Recruitment is an ongoing process where you can never fall asleep. Good developers are not so easy to find, so you need to keep tap in the Drupal community to have the visibility. Having a backlog of potential candidates is also useful, so when the time comes to make a new hire, you already have some options.

Marketing at AGILEDROP is addressing two target markets: potential clients and potential co-workers. In order to have access to the best talent, we are deeply connected with the local Drupal community. We are treating recruitment leads with the same importance as sales opportunities. This results in having a backlog of potential candidates, making us scalable when needed.

Process integration

We learned that partners do not want their processes to get broken when working with us. They want our developers to join their team and work alongside them. This effectively means that our developers are like their remote employees without the obligations that come with that.

AGILEDROP makes sure developers behave like employees of our clients. They start the day by syncing with the customer's project managers on a meeting or over chat. During the day they let them know about the progress and when they will be out for lunch. One hour before the end of the day, they sync again and announce that they are leaving soon.

 

Connecting staff augmentation and project management

Drupal staff augmentation should be:

a) Saving cost of employment

b) Increasing productivity

c) Deliver quality

If any of those requirements is not meet, this outsourcing strategy is not really working. For some clients, staff augmentation is not really the answer. When processes are not set and project management is not properly handled, this solution does not apply and usually backfires.

During the sales process with new clients, we always make sure there is a fit between our services and clients capabilities. Whenever we see the cooperation could fail due to bad project management, we act fast. Usually, the solution is to move to a more traditional outsourcing strategy that also involves project management, but with a time and materials agreement. This takes a bit of control from the client (the control they didn't have in the first place) and puts more accountability on our end.

We will learn more about our project management in one of our next blog posts.