What to expect from the best software development agency?

Let’s say that you are at the final stage of choosing the implementation partner for your product, and you are wondering what to expect from the best software development agency? How do you know that they are a good match?

I encourage you to read the article written by our company Co-Founder Marcin Dziedzic, “How to choose a software development agency“, – which will dispel your doubts about provider selection at the earliest stages. If you have not done it yet – do not hesitate.

In this post, I will explain what your dream supplier should look like, your product maker, and above all, what to expect from the best software development agency. Moreover, I will guide you through 7 bullet points chosen by me, which are critical constituents in identifying a perfect agency to build your product.

Agency takes ownership

At first, your potential software development agency needs to take responsibility to understand the context, decide, and act. The product team, including the product owner and developers, need to have a part of the control. A competent product team knows what can be achieved and how to do it. You might leave these decisions to them; thus, it can lead to substantial time savings and better quality. Moreover, it would help you save money, and your effort might be spent elsewhere.

You work with competent, business-oriented people

Only a mature, business-oriented team of experienced developers can make the right product decisions. Empowering an inexperienced team to make crucial business decisions is asking for trouble. You need to expect a team that is truly able to understand and shape your business. The team should always be one step ahead with product development so that you have the time and energy to focus on growing your business. Working with competent, business-oriented people will give you value in the form of pragmatic solutions and effective communication. Finally, both of them will lead you to have an efficient and useful product.

Agency behaves like a partner, not just service provider

As a client, you should expect simple, pragmatic solutions and fruitful long-term cooperation. The best software development agency will have an entrepreneurial attitude. Entrepreneurs know how difficult it is to build a profitable business, and they will respect your effort. A win-win strategy is an essential element of a good partnership.

Agency has a growth mindset

The only way we can live is if we grow – that phrase might be easily applied in the business world. Growth is an integral part of every startup at every stage. It creates value for your customers and all people engaged with the company. Try to expect a desire to grow mindset from your software development agency. They may grow with you and your product. In practice, it means this kind of agency will take care of your project health. The agency should share information about your project’s health and condition and what to do to eliminate risks. How to avoid similar upcoming issues? A growth mindset is about performing experiments, testing the product on real users, and making decisions based on data. It is an openness to try new things and pivot when necessary.

The team has a pragmatic approach

As easy and compact as possible – you would be much happier if your agency would be an enthusiast of a pragmatic approach – choosing simple and effective solutions. The scope of the product changes as soon as it appears on the market. That is why the most important is to build enough to get market feedback to validate your hypothesis as quickly as possible before moving to full development. The agency should not write all the code from scratch. Instead, the agency should apply ready-to-use templates and components to speed up the whole process. To sum up, time to market matters, and develop a working product that generates income and has traction is crucial.

They are team-players

You have to be willing to work with them – that is obvious, no more and no less. Of course, there will be pleasant and challenging moments for both, but you will learn a lot from each other during the whole development process. If you get through the tough times, it will have a positive impact. It is important to build a relationship between you and a software development agency. The software agency should regularly communicate with you to provide a high quality of work and keep communication excellent.

A 5-star development team experience

What does it mean? As our Co-Founder Wiktor Żołnowski describes in the post “Have you ever worked with a 5-star software development team?“, most software development teams today are at the 3-star level. A typical software development agency is like a 3-star hotel. You can sleep there well, the breakfast will be pretty good, but nothing special. The same experience you will have with the implementation team. They would probably deliver your product. Most of the time, they will be on time. But they are not the right partners to do the business together with them.
In terms of the 4-star software development team, this is the team that is business-oriented. There are people who are experts in their domains. They understand your product, understand your clients. And they help you to build new features for your solution.
A 5-star software development team is something way more than that. They understand your business, your product. They know how your clients work, and they could help you to design the entire solution. Especially that they take ownership of what they are doing for you.”

Epilogue

Hopefully, this compact article has cleared your doubts about what to expect from the best software development agency. I am curious about what experience you have in working with software development companies?