Web Development Team Structure – Everything You Should Know As A Business Owner

A fully-functional and engaging web product can help startups and businesses bring in more customers. It can also facilitate better and more transparent communication between businesses and their product users. However, about 67% of projects fail due to poor product management. This is why building a proper web development team structure is crucial and can help your business save time and money. You can also get in touch with a custom web development company to get a team of experienced developers. However, the approach will not work if you want to build an in-house website development team.

We understand that building a proper and effective web development team structure can be difficult for business owners. To help you out, we have created a detailed guide that discusses the essential roles of a web design team, some tips you can follow, and the mistakes you must avoid! We also answer some FAQs making this the one-stop guide to building a proper web development team structure.

So, what are you waiting for? Jump right into it and build a proper website development team structure with the help of our guide below!

Key Roles In A Web Development Team Structure

Nowadays, advanced technology makes it possible for us to develop websites with drag-and-drop tools. However, these often do not cater to customized solutions and features businesses might want to include. If you want to build a web application with complex backend services, you need a team of experts. Moreover, if you ‘re a beginner with no technical knowledge, it might be difficult for you to check the technical proficiency of the developers. Hence, outsourcing web development services might be a bit risky.

We recommend setting up your own team of IT experts to ensure the app development, production, and management is done in-house. Moreover, it also ensures better coordination between the different experts and members of your development team. When you build an in-house team following the proper web development team structure, you can keep a close eye on the production and development time and check whether the release time is according to plan or not.

In the following section, we discuss the different roles and responsibilities that form the base of a strong team fulfilling your web development requirements. We will also discuss the required skills and talents for each of these roles.

1. Business Analyst

Without a business analyst in your web development team structure, it would be quite difficult to understand the project requirements and communicate them to the developers. An idea of the project ‘s raw requirements will not help. So, what more information do the developers need? Well, you can simply leave the task to the business analyst and stop worrying about it. The primary role of a business analyst in your team is as follows:-

• Define your current business needs and the project vision
• Analyze these needs and transform them into comprehensive technical specifications
• Clearly specify project requirements and detail the use of every feature
• Prepare the grounds for the web application development

2. Project Manager

The entire anchor of your web development team structure, a project manager plans, organizes, and executes the complete web development process. However, their primary function is to mitigate any project risks and ensure the development timeline is followed. The major functions of a project manager are:

• Provide a budget estimate and determine the resources needed to stick to the decided development time frame
• Draft a plan mentioning the tasks to be done and the key milestones
• Segregates the tasks to the respective member of the web development team structure
• Keeps an eye on the technical development
• Coordinates with the development team using project management tools
• Seeks feedback from stakeholders and communicates to the team

3. Product Manager

Also referred to as the CEO of the product, a product manager bridges the gap between the website ‘s business and technical side. A product manager evaluates and ensures that your project is not only fully-functional but also meets the business ‘ financial goals. The primary tasks of a product manager are as follows:-

• Study user interaction with the application and improve it for better conversions
• Gather product requirements by interviewing the target audience
• Identify current user pain points and receive feedback that they relay
• Need to prioritize the application ‘s technical side but ensure it helps with other business metrics

4. Solution Architect

For a project to be successful, a framework or a technical blueprint must be built and this is done by the solution architect. After all, this blueprint serves as a guide for the developers. Other primary tasks of a solution architect are:-

• Select a framework based on the website usage, content, design, and interface
• Create wireframes to connect different parts of the website
• Ensure seamless navigation between website pages

5. UI/UX Designer

Experts who specialize in understanding user behaviors, identifying patterns, and leveraging them for better design are called UI/UX designers. Some common functions of a UI/UX designer are:-

• Envision the complete user interaction flow
• Research user mindset and create user personas
• Develop better graphic elements for added convenience
• Ensure the website is user-friendly and caters to different users

6. Web Developer

The primary responsibility of web developers is to take up the project requirements and create functional web applications based on them. Every website has two parts – front-end and back-end; and, different developers specialize in these parts. The two web developer types that you must include in your team are:-

7. Front-End Developer

Dealing with the visual part of the website, front-end developers specialize in the following tech stacks:-

• HTML5
• JavaScript
• ReactJS
• CSS

8. Back-End Developer

Dealing with data processing and other functionalities that happen on the server side, back-end developers specialize in the following tech stacks:-

• .Net
• PHP
• Python
• Java
• NodeJS

9. Quality Assurance Engineer

Another pivotal role in a company ‘s web development team structure, a QA engineer ensures that the project is free from bugs. They work closely with the designers and developers to ensure the application is seamless and error-free.

Tips To Build The Perfect Web Development Team Structure For Your Business

Now that you know the proper web development team structure and its essential components, let us discuss a few tips that can help you ensure seamless communication and development between the different parts of the complete web application development team structure. Some essential tips that can help smooth the complete process are as follows:-

Discuss Your Project Goals And Requirements

Web development is a multi-layered process which is why you might face unforeseen problems hindering development. Hence, it is crucial to understand your project ‘s core concept, expectations, and the required solution. Some questions you must answer are:-

• What problems will your product solve?
• What is its overall value to the technical community and society?
• What is the main purpose and the required result?
• Who is the product meant for?

You must also break down the solution and assign the different members of your web development team structure with their corresponding responsibility.

Build A Cross-Functional Team

It is a common misconception that your team is perfect when members can easily switch roles, i.e. cover for each other. However, a cross-functional team means that your team can create a SaaS application or other web application without any external help. For example, if your web development team structure does not have a UI/UX designer, you will need to seek help from outside agencies. Since you know the components of a perfect web development team structure, you can easily build an in-house cross-functional team. Or, you can partner with a reliable agency and hire a web development team with years of experience.

Define The Complete Communication Framework

No team can effectively function without communication making it necessary to set up a communication framework. Other than doing so, your team must also know about the different parts of it and the complete process. Your web development team must know how to communicate amongst themselves and with their supervisors and other stakeholders. Provide your team with rules, principles, tools, and practices to ensure transparent and effective communication.

Follow Agile Principles And Methodologies

After you ‘ve built a proper web development team structure, you must organize them and what better way to do so than follow Agile principles? Agile methodology refers to an approach that provides the entire framework of a software development process. This includes the different development practices followed, tools used, roles and responsibilities of every member, and rituals in place.

Mistakes You Must Avoid When Building A Web Development Team Structure

Once you have figured out your web development team structure, you must ensure that you steer clear of some common mistakes that can hamper the complete development process. To help you out, the following section discusses some of these mistakes that you must be mindful of. These are:-

Emphasizing One Role Over Another

The most common mistake is when managers and leaders emphasize the importance of one role over another. From the perspective of a manager, this can make communication with the team seamless. However, it hampers the esteem of your team members and can have a negative impact on the overall transparency and speed of development. Your manager should also be ready to offer team members tools and resources, as and when necessary, to help the development process.

Planning Obsessively

Obviously, you want to plan the complete development process well and assign responsibilities properly to the different members of your web development structure. However, planning obsessively can create way too much pressure on your team and can result in your team overlooking certain issues to complete the deadline. We recommend leaving room for flexibility to allow your developers to gather feedback and work on the existing task as necessary.

Focusing Only On Technicals

Although your team needs to be efficient enough to solve different technical issues, looking at the issues from the perspective of the business can offer a fresh view. It will also help determine how a feature or a process can help the business achieve its goals. Your managers must know what your product is about, how it helps your target audience, what problem it solves, and how your business profits. The same information must be relayed to the appropriate roles in your web development team structure to help grow your business.

You may like this: Website Redesign Guide: A Complete Strategy

Conclusion

Building a web application is not an easy task and collective effort from an expert team is necessary to build efficient applications quickly. Moreover, each member in your web development team structure plays a specific role and handles a defined set of responsibilities. Without a collective effort, you cannot expect proper project development and delivery as per the scheduled time.

Hire web developers with years of experience to ensure your project stays on schedule and you save time and money ultimately. You can also get in touch with a professional web development company to outsource the complete development. Whatever you do, ensure following the proper web development team structure for better, error-free, and quick results.