No matter how many superstars a sports team has on its roster, it takes the whole team to win a championship. From the NBA to the NFL to any sport in the NCAA, one great player doesn’t mean a winning team.
Basketball teams have six crucial roles – including the coach – that must work together to consistently secure victory. Each player has his own strengths, but the height that helps one player in rebounding also makes dribbling the ball down the court more difficult. No one member of the team can play every position.
Football teams can have a quarterback that can run over the defense and throw 50+ yards accurately, but without an offensive line and receivers, the quarterback won’t be successful.
Hockey, soccer, baseball – every sport has its superstars that contribute to the success of the team, but the wins come from a team effort.
Custom software development teams operate the same way, but with different positions: Project Manager, Requirements Analyst, Software System Architect, Software Developer, Tester, and Trainer. As on all successful sports teams, these positions are held by individuals who bring different skills to the table. A particularly gifted Software Developer, for example, may not have the communication skills to be the Project Manager or the high-level thinking required to be a System Architect.
A successful software development might look like this:
- Project manager: team leader; communicates the client’s goals and requirements to the team; identifies and clears obstacles to team success.
- Requirements analyst: translates client’s business requirements into achievable programming tasks.
- Software architect: based on the client’s requirements, chooses the appropriate framework and design for the application and the application programming interfaces (APIs); deploys the system for testing, QA, and production.
- Software developer: uses the requirements document and system architecture to write code that meets business and technical requirements.
- Tester: goes through every part of the application to identify technical issues or discrepancies between the requirements and the functionality in the system.
- Trainer: works with the client to transition from the old processes to their new system.
If your internal software development is missing some of these key players, or if you’re looking for a winning software development team, contact DragonPoint!
Contributed by Garret Garner.
