How should you properly integrate contractors?
###Introduction Lets say your team is swamped with work and you can’t finish the tasks faster than they are pouring in. There is no way to pay attention to all the projects you have. The company you work for have difficulties in finding new people or do not have it in their budged. Nevertheless, they start looking at hiring a contractor to help out with the work load since they have set a side a budget for just that. The company have have concluded that one specific project needs focus and goes through with contract discussions.
I will describe two scenarios of how a contractor can be included into a team and how this might affect them. The assumption is that in both scenarios the team has multiple projects/customers to administer.
###Scenario 1: Budget for each project The company and the contractor agrees on a contract which says that the he/she has to work on the project that needs the most focus. He/she joins the team that administers the project and starts working.
In this scenario, the company does not want to take on the cost of training the contractor in other projects than the one in the contract. During meetings, like planning or backlog refinements, there is no point for the contractor to stay to discuss other projects so they must leave during those type of meetings.
When the team and the contractor works on tasks the contractor might not be able to pair with the rest of the team, unless the team happen to work on and have time to work on the same project.
###Scenario 2: Budget for team The company has a pot for hiring a contractor to the team itself, and writes a contract that allows the contractor to work on whatever the team is working on.
###Discussion How would the team dynamic be in these two scenarios? In scenario 1 the contractor were not allowed to work on any other project than the one in focus. Moreover, he/she had to leave meetings when other projects would be discussed. The contractor were, as well, not able to pair program with other team members unless it was with the project in the contract. In these examples the contractor could feel like an outsider and excluded from the team. Whilst, the other team members might feel like bullies and cold when they must do these things. This does not really build the team up, and prevents them to become more efficient and self organized. In scenario 2, the opposite is the case. The contractor is fully integrated, and is not left as an outsider. The team can more easily take advantage of experiences that the contractor can bring to the team.
Is there anything good about hiring a contractor for a specific project? The company might save some expenses on the contractor not having to learn other systems and domains. But, does this make up the cost of having a more difficult team dynamic? I’m guessing there might be a crossing point of where the cost of having a broken team dynamic might supersede the cost of learning new systems and domains. But I have not been able to find any statistics on this and therefore I have to point out that this is a theory.
In summary, if you are considering hiring a contractor, if its over a smaller period you might want to hire the contractor for a specific project. But if you need to hire one for a longer period, for example over 6 months, you should include them fully in the team.