Staff Augmentation vs. Dedicated Teams: Which Suits Your Project Best?

There are many good things about outsourcing. The most important one, however, is that companies can choose to work with specialists from all over the world. While this is a great advantage, it can be challenging to do the proper research and find the most fitting team or people, not to mention, the right engagement model for your project. In outsourcing, the two most important engagement models are staff augmentation and dedicated teams. 

Basically, in staff augmentation, your existing team gets extended by one or more people, and with dedicated teams, you hire an entire external team to work for you. This can be long-term or short-term. 

It’s not always that simple to know which one of these two engagement models would work best for you. So, in today’s article, we are going to compare staff augmentation and dedicated teams and their key characteristics. Let’s get started!

What is Staff Augmentation? The Concept and Its Key Characteristics

Staff augmentation, or resource augmentation is a solution helpful when you need to extend your team with one or more people with the specialized skills you need, mostly short-term. This is useful mostly for short-term projects, and it doesn’t involve as many steps as hiring full-time employees. 

According to Statista, in 2022, the staffing industry worldwide reached almost $650 billion in revenue, which shows how popular this outsourcing model has become for companies. 

Let’s see the key characteristics of staff augmentation: 

Temporary Addition to Existing Teams: Staff augmentation allows you to easily add members to your team as needed and for a specific timeframe. This could take weeks, months, or last for the entire project.

Flexible and Scalable: Every project has its own needs. With staff augmentation, you can change your team size whenever you need to—no need to hire full-time staff.

Get Help When You Need It: If you’re looking for a software developer, designer, or marketing expert, staff augmentation makes it easy to add them to your team when the time is right.

Quick Onboarding:  Typically, these experts come with the skills needed for the project, which means you can save both time and resources on training. Getting started is quick and easy.

Affordable: Staff augmentation is a more budget-friendly choice than full-time hiring, which comes with expenses like ongoing salaries and benefits.

When to Use Staff Augmentation

When your project has a set end date, staff augmentation can be a suitable choice. You have the extra help you need without any long-term commitments. As an example, let’s imagine your software development company is developing a mobile app for a client within a three-month timeframe. Your team is already juggling multiple projects, and hiring full-time employees isn’t feasible. By deciding to bring in temporary mobile app developers through staff augmentation, your project can be completed within the three-month deadline and you won’t have to overextend your existing team.

Sometimes a project requires special skills that your current team might not have. Team augmentation can be of help in this situation. For example, let’s say your software development company lands a project that needs expertise in a niche programming language like Rust or Elixir that your team isn’t familiar with. You can use staff augmentation to extend your team temporarily with the skills you need, instead of spending months on training your existing team. 

During busy periods, staff augmentation lets you manage increased workloads by adding people to your team temporarily. Before launching a product, there are often a few last-minute things to sort out, like fixing bugs and making updates. If your team is handling a bunch of projects at once, bringing in some seasoned developers or QA pros through staff augmentation might make things a lot easier and help with different tasks.

Staff Augmentation: Main Advantages

Staff augmentation is a smart and budget-friendly choice for a lot of businesses. Why not skip the hassle of hiring full-time employees, which can be pricey and time-consuming? You can bring in skilled professionals temporarily whenever you need them. This is especially helpful for companies with tighter budgets.

What’s great about staff augmentation is how quickly you can add experienced people to your team. Unlike full-time hires, who need to go through onboarding and training, these professionals can dive right in because they already have the expertise you’re looking for.

You get a lot of flexibility with staff augmentation. It lets you adjust your team size based on what your project needs right now. This helps companies handle changing requirements and keeps you flexible without taking on too much.

Disadvantages of Staff Augmentation

Staff augmentation helps companies when they have a sudden increase in their workload. For example, let's say a startup that needs a few extra developers to get ready for a product launch. But, there might be a few downsides to this as well. One challenge is that temporary staff might not completely understand how your team works, which can lead to some challenges with integration.

Another downside is that augmented staff are usually only with you for the short term. Since they’re not full-time employees, they might not feel as invested in the long-term success of the project. It can also get tricky if key team members leave midway through a project—it can really slow things down.

Staff augmentation can be great for many companies and situations, but relying too much on outside help isn’t always good for your business in the long run. It’s important to find the right balance—keep a strong in-house team and bring in extra help when you need it.

What is a Dedicated Team? The Concept and The Key Characteristics

A dedicated team, as its name suggests, is a team of professionals who work on your project exclusively for a longer period. Dedicated teams are better suited for complex projects that need ongoing development, unlike staff augmentation, which is about temporary additions to your in-house team.

These are the main characteristics of the dedicated team model:

Long-Term Engagement: A dedicated team is there for the whole duration of the project, whether that’s several months or years. This way, the team can really gain an understanding of the project’s goals and the client’s business needs. 

Exclusive Focus: One of the best things about having a dedicated team is that they’re fully focused on your project—no distractions. They can get into the details, understand what you need, and come up with better solutions faster.

Full Integration: Dedicated teams often function as a part of your in-house team. This means they use the same tools and processes, which makes it easy to work together.

Autonomy and Accountability: These teams work under your guidance and supervision, but they usually are capable of making quick decisions not needing as much management, improving the project management process. 

Consistent Team Composition: Compared to staff augmentation, where you only get short-term staff, dedicated teams stay for longer periods, which leads to a stronger team. 

When to Use a Dedicated Team

If you have a long-term, more complex project coming up, a dedicated team could be more suitable, as they stay involved for the whole duration of the project. Imagine your company is starting a big project, like creating an advanced ERP system. Completing it will take at least a year. A dedicated team will be with you throughout your project, from beginning to end. They get to know the project and the company down to the smallest details, and because they’re not bouncing between tasks, you’re more likely to get the results you want.

Dedicated teams are also perfect when your project requires constant updates and maintenance. Think about a SaaS platform that is in development—your dedicated team can handle regular updates, fix bugs, and add new features without getting distracted by other projects.

When you have an important project going on, like a complete digital transformation or developing a new core technology, a dedicated team can help you make sure that everything is on track. For example, if your business is going through a digital transformation to update its IT infrastructure and integrate AI into your processes, a dedicated team by your side will help make sure these changes help you in the long run. 

Advantages of a Dedicated Team

An offshore dedicated development team can bring a lot of value to your company and product, but the biggest advantage of such a team is their long-term engagement. Nowadays, it’s not easy to find the right people for a project, and hiring an entire team that’s committed to your project’s success is a big deal and can benefit you. And, dedicated teams focus only on your project, without taking multiple clients at once, which can increase their productivity.

When your in-house team and dedicated team use the same tools and processes, it makes it much easier for them to work together and blend seamlessly. Keep communication open and collaboration strong. When you work with the same team over time, you’re holding onto all that valuable knowledge and experience. The skills they build stay within your company, helping you grow.

Potential Disadvantages

For a lot of businesses, the dedicated team model can be a fantastic option, but it’s good to be aware of some of the challenges that might come up. It's important to know, that a dedicated team can end up being the priciest outsourcing option out there. A whole team working on a project for an extended period can really add up in costs. For companies that are working with smaller budgets, this might be a bit of a drawback.

Bringing a dedicated team into your organization can be a challenge sometimes. It takes time to build trust and get everyone on the same page, so if any misunderstandings happen during the collaboration, it could affect the way the project runs.

Relying solely on an external team is one of the challenges that come with this model. It can be tricky to change your dedicated team for another one or to hand over their knowledge to your in-house team, especially once the project wraps up.

Staff Augmentation vs. Dedicated Teams: Costs, Scalability, and Commitment

After we’ve looked at these two outsourcing models—staff augmentation and dedicated teams—you might be wondering which one is right for you and your company. Let’s break down both options based on factors like cost, flexibility, and commitment to see which one fits better.

Staff augmentation is pretty flexible when it comes to costs since you only pay for the extra help when you really need it. Hiring full-time teams and employees can put a strain on your budget, and sometimes it just doesn’t add up, especially for companies that are keeping a close eye on their expenses.

If you've got short-term projects, team augmentation is definitely the way to go! It just fits better! When you're working on long-term projects that aim for stability and deep engagement, having a dedicated team may make a difference in the results you achieve.

Staff augmentation gives you the ability to scale up and down as needed, plus it offers a lot of flexibility. It's super easy to alter your team size with staff augmentation, based on what your project requires. This is a solid choice for projects when you're a bit uncertain about your long-term needs. With a dedicated team, you get reliable support and a strong commitment to your project. It might not be the most flexible option, but having a team focused on your needs is key for long-term and complex projects.

If you need talented people to fill in the gaps in your team’s skills, then staff augmentation is a great choice. You can find the right talent through staff augmentation, whether it's a programming language or some other area of expertise. It's easy to bring on more staff quickly to cover any gaps you have. Bringing temporary team members into the mix with your current staff can present some challenges. When you have dedicated teams, you benefit from a more unified skill set. A dedicated team will take the time to truly grasp your goals and vision, leading to improved collaboration. 

When it comes to staff augmentation, it's pretty common for professionals to be around just for a short time, focusing on a particular aspect of the project. Skills and experience are important, but they don’t always mean someone is fully committed to helping your project succeed. A good development team is there to support you. They listen to your ideas and get what makes your company unique.

Wrapping Up

When making your decision, most importantly think about what you want to accomplish and what your needs are. If you want something flexible, easy access to skilled professionals, and a cost-effective solution for short-term projects, team augmentation could be just what you need. If you’re working on a long-term project that needs a stable and committed team that truly understands your goals and culture, then a dedicated team might be the way to go.

Each of these models brings its own strengths, and either one can support you on your journey to success. Remember to evaluate the costs, commitment, skills, and scalability when looking at the two options to make sure they match your goals and resources.