Agile PODs: The Secret Thing in Outsourcing

If you are an entrepreneur or a person working in the corporate world, you should have experienced the irritation of repetitive tasks that consume time. SnapLogic research indicates that 90% of employees have stressed out when they are assigned with repetitive tasks. Even if AI, ML, automation, and other technologies can solve the problem of repetitive work, still many software development industry players have a bit of misalignment.

Besides, the survey held by a famous IT company, NTT, showed that 80% of recorded organizations had no progress due to outdated technology. It clearly depicts that lack of time combined with repetitive tasks is fatal for productivity. All the mentioned problems and facts show that Agile pods may serve as a solution as they have a range of advantages.

Previously people in industries used agile methodologies like scrum and kanban but slowly since 2015, agile pods have become popular in the software industry. This article includes important aspects about agile pods and you will learn how it's making development easier.

What are Agile PODs?

Firstly, POD is a short form of product-oriented delivery. In Agile, it is a group of experts with diverse skills who are grouped into a team(pod) to be more productive in project development. Agile pod teams are short, independent, and cross-functional. They work with great coordination, solve problems, and meet the tailored needs of the project.

The team usually contains 4 to 12 members depending upon the length and complexity of the project. However, some industries also create pods with up to 15 members. Moreover, the pod team contains all the experts like UI/UX Designers, Developers, Full-Stack Engineers, Business Development Manager, Business Analysts, Quality Engineers, Testers, Project Managers, CTO and more. The pod can be scaled up and down as per organization requirements in a flexible way.

How Do Agile PODs Benefit App Development?

The primary benefits of agile pods are efficiency, enhanced collaboration, and scalability. Pods are created according to the skills of every people like designing of App and UI/UX, they are assigned to the designers, and at other hand coding and technical problems, etc., are handed by the developers. Hence planning PODs helps you to make better decisions and understand the product more properly.

The best thing is, that it gives the team better visibility about the product rather than shooting arrows in the dark.

The Structure of Agile PODs

The efficiency of the project depends on how the agile pod team is formed. Also, assigning the roles to all the team members is important. The structure of a normal pod includes a core team, pod leader, and support. Here every member works at different levels and responsibilities.

#1. Leadership

The normal pod includes a core team, a pod leader, and support. Among these peculiarities, it is a leader who manages all the high-priority activities. They need to review and think about all the implications of the customer requirements analysis results; as well as discuss the responsibility with the customer: how to test, who will test, what to test, and how to describe all this.

They must stay ahead of the team in terms of their product knowledge and updates of the current data. Additionally, the leaders must ensure that the product is ready for any troubleshooting during agile development pods. So, a pod leader is to assist in syncing with you.

#2. Engineering

This section includes all the tech experts like developers, programmers, designers, testers, etc.

Programmers write code for the product according to the functionality and design.

Designers work in collaboration with app developers. They make wireframes, and prototypes and prepare a good UI/UX to make sure everything aligns with client requirements.

DevOps Engineers are experts who handle deployment and integration stuff. They help to streamline processes and enhance efficiency through automation and integrating components into the product.

So, overall every member of the team works together as one unit and systematically completes the project.

#3. Support

Support includes the experts that support to ensure the quality of the product before launching it to the market.

• Quality Assurance (QA) Engineers: help you to get double sure by testing the product for quality, features, bugs, and all other things.
• Designers (UI/UX): again after the development, app designers too need to test the design whether it's responsive to all screens. Here they make necessary improvements in designs and verify whether the product is functional and appears fine.
• Business Analyst: A business analyst makes the technical team understand the project after communicating with the client.

Top 7 Benefits of Agile PODs

#1. Rapid Development and Time-to-Market

According to the data, the group utilizing the waterfall approach boasts a success rate of, over 49% while agile teams achieve a success rate exceeding 64%. These findings suggest that agile methodologies are more effective in enabling businesses to introduce products sooner than approaches.

By utilizing methodology, in Application development projects you can create high-quality apps efficiently within a timeframe.

All credit goes to the iterative approach, all the components of the products are thoroughly tested by the experts and delivered one by one.

#2. Access to Specialized Skillsets

The Agile POD team contains all the experts necessary to complete any project successfully. No matter what your product requirement is, Agile POD contains developers, designers, testers, QA and much more so, any business can easily meet customized or from-scratch product development.

This approach helps internal and external teams to collaborate effectively and operate in a manner with stress.

#3. Flexibility and Scalability

Teams, in pods are adaptable. Can be scaled up or down as required by the projects demands.

Each team member holds significance; in the months if adjustments or enhancements are necessary for the team structure or skill sets required for tasks can be seamlessly executed by replacing professionals with the needed expertise.

#4. Enhanced Collaboration and Transparency

Teamwork is the biggest strength in agile pods. Here team works with full cooperation and transparency hence meeting the project goal becomes easier.

Teams are highly focused and communicate regularly so, if there is any issue with the product, it will get caught at an early stage and fixed quickly.

#5. Cost Efficiency

This is one of the best benefits of outsourcing with Agile PODs. Obviously with outsourcing, you don't have any expense of infrastructure, maintenance, salaries, and other things.

Plus, in agile, every product is delivered in small parts and so logically you only pay for the features or parts of the product that are approved.

#6. Improved Decision Making

Your brain makes better decisions when it gets proper exposure and knowledge right? In Agile PODs, your outsourcing team and internal team both work under the same roof with proper collaboration. This helps to exchange useful ideas and knowledge throughout the project.

#7. Enhanced and Detailed Attention to Product

Agile PODs follow continuous iteration so, with each iteration, the product quality gets improved. The pod team tests and improves the product thoroughly until and unless it looks like close or exactly to clients requirements.

Let's understand Agile Pod vs Scrum Team

Agile PODs for Different Industries

Not only in IT and software work, but agile pods are also been used in various other health, fintech, e-commerce sectors and many more.

As we have discussed above agile pods in IT offer more flexibility to teams to scale their business when user requirements change.

Similarly in healthcare, agile pods help in handling medical data securely and ensure regulatory compliance is met.

Agile pods also help the e-commerce industry in launching products/apps earlier as compared to the competitors.

Not only the above industries, today, but diverse industries are using agile pods to fulfill their business needs in terms of security, scalability, faster launching to market, improvement, and more.

What Type of Problems Do Agile PODs Solve in Outsourcing?

Aside from improving industries overall—agile pods solve tons of outsourcing challenges too! If your outsourcing partner uses agile pods—you’re in luck! They simplify tasks remarkably well!

Agile pods bridge the skills gaps. You do not need to worry if you don't have a specialized skill person available in your inhouse.

You can flexibly handle uncertain project requirements with agile pods. Using targeted sprints keeps teams moving steadily while avoiding setbacks.

Let's See Some of The Success Stories of Agile PODs

Over the world, there are n number of companies that have gained success through agile pods. Below are some, have a look.

Spotify and ING bank were facing the same issue - skill gaps, slow development process. Spotify, a music application incorporates pods in its operations, which developers have labeled the Spotify model.

They adopted the approach of assembling teams to better respond to shifts, in the market.

The team was split into squads, with each member focusing on features and parts of the product assigned to them. Ultimately thanks, to the pod approach adopted by these companies they experienced the efficiency and successfully launched updated versions packed with new features.

Why Expert App Devs Can Be Your Right Agile Outsourcing Partner?

For years now in the IT field and, around the world, Expert App devs have provided top-notch app development and various services to clients.

Our team is highly committed to providing you with top-notch service and catering to evolving trends and user needs effectively. Opt for us as your partner for mobile app development, without any hesitation; we assure you won't be disappointed.

We excel in utilizing approaches and adherent, to industry standards tailored to match your business preferences and project requirements.

Are you seeking to delegate your project at a cost? Get in touch, with Expert App Devs to learn how we can assist you. We're an email away. Reach out to us today for outsource app development needs.

Conclusion

Do you find this article useful? agile is obviously famous and used widely by various industries as it offers flexibility to scale the product with the changing needs. McKinsey and Co. research says that apart from non-agile companies, 93% of organizations using Agile noticed better customer satisfaction and obviously this is the ultimate goal of every organization.

 Frequently Asked Questions

#1. What is an Agile POD in outsourcing?

First of all, pod means product-oriented delivery which is a cross-functional group of professionals that works in an agile environment to deliver high-quality software to the client. Each pod quickly handles the changes and carries the entire development cycle from planning to deployment of the software.

#2. Why are Agile PODs more effective for modern outsourcing needs?

In the dynamic changing software world, flexibility and collaboration are two main important things to deliver the best quality product to the stakeholders. Agile pods tick all the points like flexibility, improved collaboration, and fast product delivery, and are capable of handling all the bottlenecks of the changing world hence it is more effective for modern outsourcing needs.

#3. What are the types of agile?

Agile follows an iterative pattern and has unique approaches according to the project. Below are some of the types of agile:

• Kanban
• Scrum
• Extreme programming(XP)
• Crystal
• Dynamic system development method(DSDM)
• Feature-driven development(FDD)

#4. What is the difference between the pod and squad models?

The pod consists of an adaptable group that specializes in an aspect of product development while squads are versatile teams that concentrate their efforts, on particular features or products, within the project scope.

Each pod operates autonomously on their designated tasks while squads collaborate as teams, throughout every phase of development and testing until the release date.

#5. What is MVP in Agile?

Businesses often introduce a stripped-down version of their product to gather feedback from users aiming to gather insights, for enhancing the application. And this is what MVP is - a minimum viable product.

Jignen Pandya

Vice President at Expert App Devs

Responsible for creating a sales funnel, attracting top-of-the-funnel customers, and converting the target market.