Body leasing, team leasing, and advanced team leasing from Craftware

Body leasing – first level of outsourcing

Body leasing, in other words, employee outsourcing. It’s often associated with leasing individual specialists. In the article Body leasing – how do we do it at Craftware? I explained how this service works and why it pays off. You can find more examples and evidence that, at Craftware, we carry out body leasing in a different way, and specifically, into a plus. Check it here: Team, leader, feedback – body leasing by Craftware. Feel welcome 🙂

Leasing individual consultants is, in some way, still a basic form of outsourcing. In this article, I’ll move up the ladder and present you with the extended models of this service, in other words, team leasing and advanced leasing.

The term extended nicely conveys the essence of both models – we provide the customer with a team rather than individual specialists. It depends on the customer’s needs what kind of team it is.

At higher level – team leasing

Let me start with team leasing that offers several possibilities. We can offer the customer a team consisting of individuals specializing in one chosen area. For example, a testing or development team can join the ongoing project and fill the skill gap. It can also be a mixed team. As an example, I’ll use one of our projects carried out for a customer. The customer was arranging a team to take care of the application – its maintenance and development based on the DevOps best practices. The customer had some of the specialists on board (architects and developers). However, they also needed a Scrum Master, tester, and business analyst to have the whole team. We provided them with these specialists.

Leasing the whole team is the most advanced option. Then, the customer takes care of the whole team and delivers everything from A to Z. This option is quite common in the end2end projects carried out by Craftware.

Of course, depending on the needs, the customer can consider other ways of filling the skill gap, for example, by regular employment of specialists. Above all, it means a separate recruitment process or body leasing for each role, usually done in collaboration with various vendors. Different vendors mean different processes and points of contact so the number of formalities related to the service of all these processes increases.

Team leasing simplifies all procedures and minimizes their number. To put it simply, it brings the whole, seemingly complicated, undertaking to a single point of contact. It’s, therefore, a sort of an all-in-one solution.

Sometimes the team we offer includes people who have worked together before – it’s an additional benefit to the customer. A good team, where members don’t have to adjust to each other, can carry out the project faster and more efficiently. We are happy to recommend such good teams to customers both as a comprehensive team leasing service and the outsourcing of a part of a team. Such recommendations are possible with us and take place quite often. It is so because we’re continuously in touch with our employees delegated to work for our customers and regularly take care of all assignments.

Highest level of initiation – advanced team leasing

In the aforementioned situations, the agreement we conclude with a customer concerns the delivery of specific competencies. We provide a team of specialists. However, it’s the customer’s responsibility to manage such a team. It includes assigning specialists to specific tasks in the project and then reviewing their work. The customer manages the project, therefore, they are responsible for its implementation. We, as a vendor, can also take on this responsibility – within the advanced team leasing (ATL) service.

ATL is the most advanced model of body leasing we often use for the end2end projects. In this case, we take on the responsibility of both providing specialists and managing the project. It means that we’re obliged to comply with the KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) specified in the agreement. The most common KPIs include:

• KPIs concerning the project end date,
• KPIs concerning the project costs – the monthly cost of leasing individual specialists with given skills and the project duration are specified in the agreement, resulting in the total cost of the ATL service,
• qualitative KPIs – can concern, for example, the code quality.

Neither body leasing nor team leasing takes into account this type of provisions. We, of course, take care of the delegated employees and are in constant contact with them (in the previous articles, I described the style and rules of our work as a service provider). What’s more, we respond regularly to the reviews submitted by both parties. It’s, however, a different responsibility than the one that concerns the implementation of the end2end project.

Advanced team leasing requires us to get to know the company and its way of working better. In this case, we also need to earn the trust of both parties – our customers often entrust us with the execution of this service. It happens after the customers had earlier, satisfying experiences with our cooperation. Contrary to body leasing or team leasing, this service also requires greater involvement and different skills provided from our side. When we provide a team within the ATL service, we need to look at the project from a broader perspective. Does the team deliver the assigned tasks on time, do they need more people, and if so, how does it affect the budget? At Craftware, we are good at it and capable of keeping the balance – for many years, we’ve been working with customers, implementing the end2end projects.

Advanced team leasing – what makes it stand out?

I want to emphasize that I care about the proper understanding of the difference between body leasing, team leasing, and advanced team leasing. Anyone would think: do employees provided within the body leasing and team leasing services have lower substantive knowledge? Or might they be sloppier (slower, make mistakes, or have lower qualifications) than those who are delivered with the ATL service? The answer is no! In each type of service, there might be (and are) the same people and names. The only major difference is the person who is responsible for the project and its management. At Craftware, thanks to our experience, we’re not afraid of taking on this responsibility.

Let me add that the advanced team leasing service does not have to concern the delivery of the whole team. We can agree with the customer on specific KPIs including part of the team, for example, only testers. In such a case, KPIs can relate to ensuring a specified quality of testing or invariability of the personnel (the customer wants to have specific, key individuals indicated in the agreement, for example, seniors or team leaders). If such a need arises, we are obliged to provide individuals with similar or higher competencies at a specified time. We always emphasize that we care about long-term, stable cooperation – I also wrote about it in the previous articles.