You’ve done it. You’ve shipped a piece of software and made the lives of your users easier — not to mention putting great big smiles on the faces of your stakeholders.
Now they want more. More features, more complex functionality, all at a faster pace. It seems your triumphant success is met with higher expectations. The enormous challenge of launching a product is now replaced by an even bigger challenge: growing and maintaining a product!
One way to meet these new expectations is to take a hard look at your team: how it’s built and what challenges it faces as it researches, designs, builds, tests, and deploys new versions of product. Your team’s needs will undoubtedly change as you transition from a frenzied MVP launch to more consistent releases, so get introspective and consider whether it’s time to scale by looking at these three aspects of your product team.
1. Skill Set
As your product becomes more complex and moves far beyond the MVP stage, it’s time to assess the current team makeup. Maybe team members instrumental to launch have moved on, or you find yourself needing a role that wasn’t relevant until now. Whatever it may be, scaling your team in the appropriate places can fill those skill gaps and provide your team with the pieces necessary to charge forward.
2. Utilization
When teams start consistently dipping into overtime, you start to encounter the dreaded b-word: burnout. A team working beyond capacity for extended periods of time is a recipe for disaster. It’s critically important to start thinking about what changes are necessary to return to stability. Scaling your team in the appropriate places, even if temporarily, can provide relief and balance the workload before burnout consumes your team.
3. Speed
More people equals more output equals faster turnaround times, right? IT’S A TRAP! Don’t expect increased velocity on day one, but scaling a team can certainly help you in the long term. Strategically adding key people to your team with the buy-in of the current team — and proper support during onboarding — can give you a real boost down the road.
If any one of these sounds familiar, it may be time to scale. Scaling the right way at the right time offers great benefits to your entire product team, your users, and your organization. Check out Detroit Labs OnSite to see how we can help.