Managed Teams
A complete delivery team, assembled and managed by Desmata, for a project or ongoing workstream.
MBE certified (Minority Business Enterprise)
Overview
About Managed Teams
Sometimes the need is not one person but a working team. Desmata assembles a group with the right mix of skills, such as engineers, QA, a business analyst and a delivery lead, and takes responsibility for keeping it staffed and productive.
Managed teams are where our two practices meet. The staffing network supplies the people, and our delivery practice supplies the methods, standards and a lead who has run technology projects before.
You deal with one accountable partner instead of coordinating several individual contractors. The team can sit onshore, or combine onshore leadership with nearshore and offshore capacity.
Start with a conversation
Tell us what you are working on. A member of the Desmata team will reply by email or phone.
Call us on +1 (214) 407-8089Outcomes
What you get
One point of accountability
A delivery lead owns the plan, the people and the reporting, so you manage outcomes and not individual timesheets.
A team that fits the work
The mix of roles reflects the project, and changes as the work moves between phases.
Capacity without a hiring cycle
We assemble, replace and scale the team, so you do not run recruitment for each role.
Clear reporting
Progress, risks and costs are reported on an agreed schedule.
Capabilities
What we do, in detail
Product and engineering teams
Squads that build and release software.
- Full-stack engineers and architects
- QA and test automation engineers
- DevOps engineers
- Product owner or business analyst
Data and AI teams
Teams for platforms, models and reporting.
- Data engineers and analytics engineers
- Data scientists and ML engineers
- BI developers
- Data architect
Cloud and security teams
Teams for platform and protection work.
- Cloud and platform engineers
- Site reliability engineers
- Security engineers and IAM specialists
- GRC analyst
Support and operations teams
Teams that keep systems healthy.
- Application support engineers
- Production support analysts
- Service management lead
- Delivery manager
Approach
How an engagement runs
Step 1: Agree scope and outcomes
We define the work, the deliverables, the measures of success and ways of working with you.
Step 2: Assemble the team
We select people from our network and the market, and name a delivery lead as your single contact.
Step 3: Start and stabilize
We align on tools, standards and rhythm, and deliver a first increment to build confidence.
Step 4: Run and report
The lead runs the team and reports on progress, risk and cost on an agreed schedule.
Step 5: Scale and adjust
We grow, shrink or change the mix of skills as the work moves through its phases.
Technologies and standards
What we work with
Tools, platforms, frameworks and standards our teams work with and design for. Standards are context for the work, not certifications held by Desmata.
Delivery practices
- Scrum
- Kanban
- SAFe-style program coordination
- CI/CD
- Test automation
Collaboration tools
- Jira
- Azure DevOps
- GitHub
- Confluence
- Microsoft Teams
- Slack
Engineering stacks
- Java
- .NET
- Python
- React
- Node.js
- Flutter
- React Native
Cloud and data
- AWS
- Azure
- Google Cloud
- Kubernetes
- Snowflake
- Kafka
- Power BI
Engagement models
Ways to work with us
Project team
A team assembled to deliver a defined project, then wound down or handed over.
Ongoing workstream team
A standing team for a continuing backlog, with capacity that moves with demand.
Onshore, nearshore or offshore blend
Onshore leadership with capacity added from other locations, to fit your budget and time zones.
Build, operate, transfer
We build and run the team, then transfer people or the work to your organization under agreed terms.
Technology and talent
Technology and talent together
A managed team draws on every part of Desmata: recruiters for the people, engineers for the delivery methods, and a lead who answers to you. The team can also convert into permanent hires for you over time.
Roles we can also staff
- Delivery lead
- Solutions architect
- Full-stack engineer
- Data engineer
- QA automation engineer
- DevOps engineer
- Business analyst
- Scrum master
- Security engineer
Need the people as well as the plan?
The engineers who design the work and the specialists who join your team come from one firm.
Why Desmata
Why Desmata
A team built for your work
We shape the roles and ways of working around your project, not a fixed package.
Staffing and delivery together
One firm finds the people and runs the delivery, which cuts the coordination you would otherwise do yourself.
Outcome-driven
Scope, deliverables and measures of success are agreed at the start and reported against.
Global capabilities, local partnership
Our onshore, nearshore and offshore models let us match team makeup to budget and time zones. An MBE certified firm, Desmata is based in Plano, Texas.
Questions
Frequently asked questions
How is a managed team different from staff augmentation?
With staff augmentation, individuals join your team and you manage them. With a managed team, Desmata is responsible for the group, including its lead, its mix of skills and its delivery against agreed outcomes.
Who manages the team day to day?
A Desmata delivery lead manages the team and is your single point of contact. You set the priorities, and the lead handles planning, staffing and reporting.
Can the team change size during the project?
Yes. We scale it up or down as the work moves through phases and change the mix of skills as needs change. We agree how changes are requested and priced at the start.
Can we hire members of the team later?
Often, yes. Conversion terms for individual team members can be agreed at the start, so you have a path to bring key people in-house.
Need a team, not just people?
Describe the project or backlog and the outcomes you want. A Desmata delivery lead will reply with a suggested team shape and how we would run it.
MBE certified (Minority Business Enterprise)