Human resources form the most important aspect of any software development project and employing the right people becomes the crucial factor in determining the outcome of the exercise. Now there are two options available for the person who intends to develop the project, the first would be to engage a company, sign a contract, define the requirements and delegate the complete responsibility of all deliverables to them.Most of the time this does not work for project owners, either they burn too much budget or get dissatisfied with the final deliverables.The second option would be to hire contractual developers and self manage the project, this stands to be a better and efficient method in several ways. Let us look at some of the inherent advantages of contractual hiring.
Greater control of the project
This model demands the self management by the owner, thereby providing greater control of the project. The various functions get continuously monitored and course corrections are performed wherever necessary. The status of the modules would get reported on a daily basis and any dependencies, issues and requirements will be sorted out immediately. The requirements can be clearly articluated and doubts cleared to the developers which prevents effort and time wastage.
Lesser cost
Contractual hiring provides significant cost advantages because the project management would be done by the owner and that effort gets saved fully. Also functions such as testing and document review can be either self managed or delegated to friends, which results in further cost saving. The project can be completed with significantly lesser budget yet it can achieve better success.
Easier change management
Everyone knows that software requirements are bound to change during the execution of the project, this often results in execution of change management process which increases paper work, cost and affects the total budget. Since contractual hiring provides greater control of the project and daily status, deviations are addressed instantly and necessary changes can be implemented with lesser effort and cost. Also this model provides the owner better decision making ability to go ahead with a change or drop the same.
Plug and Play advantage
The developers can be deployed whenever necessary and can be released immediately, this works to the advantage of the project owner by relieving him from obligations, constraints and conditions. The project can be stopped for a while, incase the owner wants to perform a validation of requirements or user survey.
Periodic payment Option
In this model the owner has clear idea about cost of the development and can spend the budget wisely. As most of the payments are done monthly it would be easier on the pocket and allows the owner to validate the outcome with the amount that gets spent.The contract can be extended and shortened as per the changing needs of the project without much trouble.
Thus contractual hiring of developers works to the best advantage of software development by startups, small companies and individuals, we suggest this model for people who are less experienced in software development projects and with smaller budget.