If you’ve decided flexible capacity is right for your team, here is how you can convince your boss to get approval. If you are not sure if flex capacity is right for you, read our blog How and When to Use Flexible Capacity.

You’ll need to make a clear data-driven case that based on existing resources you won’t hit a deadline. Use historical velocity and resource data to extrapolate a timeline forward. Be realistic about timelines because even the best plans and hopes are often not what actually transpires.

You’ll need to show that additional FTE developers will not solve the problem and the deadline will be missed. Some things to consider:

• Make sure to account for ramp up time which can be 4 - 6 weeks.
• Make sure to account for lost development time if your current engineers are involved in the interviewing process.
• Avoid the 9 women having a baby in 1 month fallacy.
• Watch for interdependence and sequencing.

Build the case for Flexible Capacity vs. FTE

There are a number of things to consider when making this comparison:

Understand your internal time to hire

Compare the ramp up time for flexible capacity vs FTE

• FTEs can take as long as 3 - 6 months to recruit, interview, and close
• At Admios we’re usually up and running in 2 weeks

Understand your internal ramp up time

Show that flexible capacity ramps up faster

• FTEs that need to learn the overall business, HR processes, and get setup with tools could take 3 - 8 weeks of ramp up depending on the size of the company.
• At Admios we try to ramp up in one week and be comparable with internal devs in velocity in the first 30 days.

Quantify your internal cost to hire

• Include the time spent by devs to interview candidates.
• Calculate how many candidates they interview before you can make a hire.
• Multiply and present it as a capacity cost.

Calculate your internal hourly dev cost

• Take internal salary plus benefits (usually 15% on top of salary).
• Divide by total number of hours worked in a year (usually 1,800).
• Calculate your true hourly rate.
• Compare to flexible capacity cost.

Present concrete next steps

Now that you have a data-driven case, you are ready to present to your boss or upper management. Before presenting you’ll want to make sure you have an actual source of flexible capacity with rates and ramp up times. Force the decision to be between concrete action and inaction, not hypothetical action.

If you’d like to learn more about our flexible services and rates here at Admios, click here to schedule a quick 15-minute chat with us.