IT Staff Augmentation for Large Scale Migration
Large scale digital projects, such as cloud migrations or ERP overhauls, often require a sudden surge in specialized labor that an in-house team cannot provide. IT Staff Augmentation allows organizations to bridge this gap by adding skilled professionals to their existing teams on a flexible basis. This model provides the agility to scale up for a project and scale down upon completion, avoiding the long-term overhead of permanent hires while ensuring that the project benefits from specialized expertise.
Challenges
- A major government agency had a strict 6-month deadline to migrate 200 applications to Azure.
- Internal staff lacked specific experience in Azure DevOps and Terraform (Infrastructure as Code).
- Hiring permanent employees for a one-time migration was not financially or logistically feasible.
- High risk of project delays, which would result in significant budgetary penalties and service disruptions.
Solution
- Integrated the augmented staff into the client’s daily Stand-ups and Agile Sprints for seamless collaboration.
- Deployed a team of 15 Augmented Cloud Engineers to work directly alongside the internal IT team.
- Provided specialized "SME" (Subject Matter Expert) roles to handle the most complex migration tasks.
- Facilitated a "Knowledge Transfer" program where augmented staff trained internal employees on new cloud tools.
Benefits
- Migration was completed 2 weeks ahead of the 6-month deadline, avoiding all budgetary penalties.
- $200,000 saved compared to the cost of hiring a large-tier management consultancy.
- Internal staff were successfully upskilled in modern DevOps practices by the end of the project.
- Achieved a seamless transition with zero disruption to the agency's public-facing digital services.