The present situation of the business world is forcing leaders to become agile, and the SaaS industry is the one that is at the top of that list.
Both individual and business users have developed a habit of seeing a seamless user experience and frequent product updates.
SaaS companies are looking to establish a truly agile team or organization that can balance the stability and dynamism to survive in the hyper-competitive SaaS industry.
What is an agile development team, and how is it different from a normal development team?
A software development team consists of professionals building and maintaining a software product. The group generally has the following job roles: Project Manager, Designer, Developer, QA (Quality Assurance Engineer), and Business Analyst.
As the world started seeing more and more SaaS startups with the growing demand for SaaS products, the atmosphere quickly became competitive and fast-paced.
Now many startups don’t take days or weeks to deliver a significant software update; it takes them from several hours to fewer than a week.
The software development teams have adopted an agile approach to collaborating between themselves and the clients. The group stays close to the customers, listens to feedback, and quickly implements changes to the product.
How is agile development different from normal development?
| Agile development team | Normal development team |
| Flat team structure with accountable roles.The team works on one project at one timePerformance reviews are more holistic, and team performance evaluation is primary.Dynamic people with a cross-functional team.A highly focused three-nine individuals teamTransparent information | Top-down management. The manager is responsible for successful execution.Team works on several projects at one timeIndividual performance is evaluatedDefined job rolesNo limit on the team sizeInformation is not public; it’s only shared with relevant people. |
How can agile collaboration help a SaaS business to grow rapidly?
An agile team is like a dream team for any startup. They deliver high value in the shortest period.
Let’s look at the advantages they bring to the company:
- Addressing immediate business challenges
Startups often face business challenges that must be solved as soon as possible. Agile means quickly acknowledging the team’s obstacles and finding effective solutions through team coordination.
They develop processes and coordination methods to execute rapid work cycles.
- Making the business more customer-centric
With the cross-functional way of working, the group can deliver quick solutions and upgrades to the software products. They often directly interact with the customer or the common point of contact to provide the best value.
- Management becomes easier with empowered teams.
An empowered team does not need someone to watch over them and tell them what to do closely.
Unlike traditional hierarchy, the manager’s role here is to guide the team members in times of uncertainty and ensure the group works distraction-free.
The leaders implement a transparent and horizontal team structure that enables the individuals to create the most value for the customers.
Team members take responsibility for reaching out to the clients directly for feedback, product optimization, and development.
- Helps in developing a robust culture
A high-performance culture develops where people work closely and shares common ambitious goals. Agile development teams are an excellent example of powerful work culture.
- Highly aligned team with shared objectives
An agile team behaves like one because they all share the same goals. The alignment comes from the team members’ accountability toward the common goals.
The team that combines this alignment with the flexible strategy execution can quickly react to the opportunities coming their way.
These people carefully observe the changes in user preferences and swiftly take action to create a better solution.
There are some tools that help you to boost alignment between the employees, such as an OKR management software.
- More engaged employees
In an engaging work culture, the leaders empower the employees to take ownership of their part of the job.
The manager motivates their people to behave in team-oriented ways. Leaders try to develop a culture where people have accountability and the freedom to grab learning opportunities.
- Faster and ongoing learning
A continuous cycle of thinking, brainstorming, executing, and learning forms the basis of innovative solutions in agile teams.
The group emphasizes continuous learning through experimentation and meetings that focus on the progress of the ongoing task.
People in an agile team do not limit themselves in terms of their skill set; they often learn and execute cross-functional skills.
- Rapid decision-making and strategy execution
The group establishes a system that lets the professionals have quick insights into decision-making. People make small decisions regularly, test them, and optimize their decision-making processes.
Rather than being a single person’s decision, the group discusses and brainstorms to make an effective decision.
- Delivering next-generation and disruptive technology
Better technology empowers people to solve daily operational problems and achieve more ambitious goals. But who develops these technologies?
A race is going on between the highly aligned tech teams to create better and more disruptive technology products.
The agile group uses innovative and highly efficient methods, such as creative automation, to complete manual tasks.
With a high level of productivity, they can release continuously upgraded versions of the software.
If you want to know how a particular tool can help a team to maintain alignment and collaborate on the same platform, you can sign up for a free demo to get all your questions answered.
