A successful development project requires a hybrid operational model that balances the speed of a focused external team with the stability of core internal processes.

The external development team, Softlandia, operates on a "Scrumban" model, using a prioritized Kanban board for a clear, continuous workflow. This approach avoids rigid sprints, favouring a nimble weekly cycle to maintain momentum.

This external team’s work is managed in a dedicated project space, like a separate JIRA board, ensuring their focus remains on the new AI features. Meanwhile, your internal product team can maintain its own rhythm, such as a two-week Scrum cycle, without disruption.

The two teams are connected through a single, prioritized backlog, ensuring that any work needed from the internal team is fed into their existing sprint planning process in an orderly fashion.

‍

Partnership & Integration

In this model, Softlandia’s role is that of a deeply integrated, external product team, not a hands-off vendor. We work in close partnership with your appointed product lead, who owns the backlog and provides direction.

Our team becomes part of your ecosystem, using shared tools like JIRA and Slack for full transparency. The most critical point of integration is the quality gate: all code developed by Softlandia is submitted for code review by your internal engineering team. This ensures that every new feature meets your architectural standards and that knowledge transfer happens organically, building trust and a better final product.

To make this clear, here’s how the roles and communication are structured:

Roles and Responsibilities

• Client Product Lead: Owns the AI feature backlog, defines priorities, and provides direction to the Softlandia team.

• Softlandia (External Team): Executes on the prioritized backlog, develops the AI features, and participates in all key planning and review meetings.

• Client’s Core Engineering Team: Acts as the quality gate by conducting code reviews for all work submitted by the Softlandia team. They also handle any required changes to the core platform.

• Client’s Design Team: Provides occasional design reviews to ensure the new features align with the overall product experience.

‍

Meeting and Communication Practices

• Weekly Planning & Demo: A joint meeting with Softlandia and your key stakeholders to demonstrate the previous week's progress and plan the upcoming work. This is the primary forum for alignment and feedback.

• Daily Stand-ups: Short, frequent check-ins (e.g., twice weekly) between Softlandia’s developers and your core team members to resolve blockers and ensure tight coordination.

• Monthly Retrospectives: A dedicated session to reflect on the process, identify improvements, and ensure the partnership remains effective and efficient.

• Shared Tools: All work is tracked transparently in a shared JIRA project, with communication flowing through common Slack channels to ensure everyone is on the same page.

‍

Conclusion

This integrated approach is how Softlandia adds significant value beyond just writing code. It allows a SaaS company to accelerate the development of complex AI features without derailing the roadmap of its core product team.

We bring the specialized, senior-level AI engineering expertise to build what's new, while your team maintains control over the core platform and quality standards.

This model provides the best of both worlds: the velocity of a dedicated external team combined with the architectural integrity and long-term maintainability guaranteed by internal oversight. It de-risks innovation and ensures that the AI features you ship are not just powerful, but also robust, scalable, and built to last.

‍