Building a web development team

A web development team need not necessarily be an in-house affair as it can also be an outsourced team. The object of forming a web development team is to streamline your website, carry out SEO techniques and increase traffic to help you enlarge your business. As all of us are aware that millions of people utilize the Internet services on a daily basis and therefore to properly maintain the website, it calls for a competent team of qualified professionals.

The process of maintaining a successful website can at times be strenuous and this the reason why many people opt to outsource at least certain tasks to a professional web development team. All of us know web design and development is a relatively new activity. Web development calls for professional competence to combine all media activities with data processing applications. What special skills do people need for web development and how to bring together the people with those skills to form a useful web development team?

The key factor for putting up a web team development team is balancing the IT technical skills with creative skills. Quite often there may be a conflict between a technically perfect design and one that is aesthetically attractive – as the two may seldom combine. It usually becomes evident from a causal glance at a web site as to how the web team is balanced. One way to develop a well-balanced web team is to rely on tools to provide the technical framework, to which creativity can be added.

The problem with this approach is that current frameworks provided by web authoring tools are limited and considered by many as technically inefficient. Web designing and development, for it to be perfect, requires both technical and artistic skills. While forming a web development team, do not just include one group of people in the corporate headquarters. Think of all staff members spread throughout the organization who occupy key positions in the functioning of the organization. It is better to include them before they feel isolated and work not in consonance with the corporate strategy.

More and more people are beginning to feel that web development is best suited for outsourcing. Either wholly or partly the processes can be contracted out but care must be exercised not to outsource it to your IT supplier, who may not have the required skills. Web design can be carried out by a remotely located team, interacting over voice and e-mail. The web server can be remotely located, or even if locally located can be remotely maintained. It is believed that a web team which is partly in-house with few external members is particularly effective, provided the means of communication and expected response time are clearly understood by both the sides.

The software industry has long known that at least half the total cost of software over its full life-cycle is in the maintenance phase. The same logic and arithmetic applies to web sites. To maximize the initial investment in a site, it needs to be as up-gradable as possible. How easy will it be to keep the appearance of the site fresh, even after the original web development team is no longer around to maintain the website and how easy will it be for new members of the web development team to add content, or functionality – are the questions to be borne in mind.