Scaling Dev Teams For Dummies

Most startups begin with a very small development team of 1–2 engineers working on building the MVP of a product. Generally, teams of this size don’t follow a defined process, and don’t have the systems or disciplines in place that support scaling the development team.

Once a development team grows beyond its first 2 or 3 engineers, it generally needs to start following some sort of process to have the information needed to (1) judge the performance of the engineers, (2) manage expectations of the business, (3) ensure quality standards are met.

I’ve found that a lightweight Agile process is the most effective process for this environment. This should include daily standups, weekly sprint planning meetings, and using a lightweight agile tools such as :

In my experience, I only recommend doing this when you have a team of 4–9 engineers. To accommodate simultaneous product development, Use product “Swim Lanes” in Trello or Asana. Use the 80/20 rule and split them into teams or squads. Ideally, 80% of team velocity will continue to be focused on the original product, and 20% of team velocity should be dedicated to the new product.

If you have the cash — hire a new product manager for this new product — but regardless each swimming lane should have its own roadmap and its own priorities. In sprint planning, the team will prioritize features such that 80% of the their velocity is dedicated to features from one backlog, and 20% from the other backlog.

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