So you have a deadline to hit and know that you can’t with existing resources? How do you add resources quickly? Flexible capacity.
What is Flexible Capacity?
Flexible capacity is a source of engineers that you can scale up and down quickly with minimal effort or commitment. These engineers are not full-time hires but are able to quickly integrate with your existing team and act as full-time or part-time developers.
When to use Flexible Capacity?
You’ll need flex capacity whenever the demand for resources oustrips your current capabilities. Resources could mean employees, time, skills, or management capacity.
The best fit for flexible resources is when you have a project that developers can ramp up on quickly. This usually means
- Low domain expertise required.
- Limited reliance on other team members.
- Ramp up should be 1/5 of the total time the dev is needed at most.
Here are some common examples:
Scenario 1: You don’t need the engineers permanently.
This likely means there is a defined end date for the project or scope. Flex engineers could be there for 12 months, or longer, but you are getting the benefit of not having to commit to an employee.
Scenario 2: There is internal resistance for full-time hires.
Hiring freezes, messy org structures, and even internal politics could be blockers for hiring much needed development capacity. Maybe your boss just doesn’t want to add headcount. You can avoid the headache entirely by bringing on flexible capacity to keep projects moving forward which will just show up as a line item in your overall budget.
Scenario 3: You want FTEs but you need to scale up faster than you can hire.
If your hiring process is slow, the recruiting team is understaffed, or there just isn’t a big supply of qualified devs in your area, you are probably looking at 3 - 6 months to get new resources. Flexible capacity makes it possible to keep projects moving forward while you spend time finding the right full time hire.
What to do next?
If you feel that flexible capacity is right for you, read how to convince your boss to use flexible capacity to take the next step.
If you’d like to talk to someone in more detail about type, timing, and price of a flexible capacity development team click here to schedule a quick 15-minute chat to learn more.
