How to develop team of good PHP Developers?

[rahulphp11]

Hello Everyone,
I need your quick help. I am an entrepreneur and expert in SAP implementation. I have just started a Web Development Company focusing on PHP Development, for which I have hired people who knows Core PHP very well. Initially all goes well but now I am receiving enquiries for high end work.
Currently, I have several projects for Joomla, Magento and other PHP framework based applications, specially on MVC, CakePHP etc. But I am having some challenges, so hope some senior developers can guide me:
Issues:
1) Though my current team of Core PHP Developers do handle all projects but their output is very slow. They take lot of time for making even small changes and understand these Framework concepts, and obviously they should because they are not experts

2) Generally my projects budget is not huge, so most of them are in range of $500 to $1000 so I can’t hire highly paid resources. Though my current team strength is 30

3) My partner has left and I don’t know much about PHP since I am from functional domain.

Where I need help
1) Is it better option that I get training for my team from an expert on any of these frameworks? How much time do you think they may take to learn it?

2) Is it better I hire a Team Leader with good PHP knowledge once my team has gone through basic training ? I know, if my current team don’t know any framework, even a good team leader won’t be able to handle everything from scratch

3) If anyone knows any of PHP framework, would he be able to handle Magento, Joomla and other open source apps projects alone? Or I will have to hire developer for each of these applications separately?

Please note: I currently do not have big profit margins so can’t hire each expert separately, but yes can spend money in development of my current team because they all are intelligent and hardworking, just need some guidance.

Thanks for your help

[johnj]

1) Is it better option that I get training for my team from an expert on any of these frameworks? How much time do you think they may take to learn it?

If you can afford the training from an expert then it is good. Irrespective of the quality of the trainer, the ultimate responsibility of learning anything is with the team members. Time taken to learn will depend on the effort put in by the team members. Don't expect any miracle in less than 3 months however good your team is. A reasonable time is around 5 to 6 months provided they are working on a project and not just learning.

2) Is it better I hire a Team Leader with good PHP knowledge once my team has gone through basic training ? I know, if my current team don’t know any framework, even a good team leader won’t be able to handle everything from scratch

Yes it is good to hire a team leader. He/She will definitely add value to the team because you have somebody to co-ordinate and lead. Yes, Even if the team lead knows everything it will not make a huge difference if the team is not able to pull its load because there is a limit that a team lead deliver. Most team leads pull 1 person's work, some do 2 people's work and none can do more than that because a day has only 24 hours.

3) If anyone knows any of PHP framework, would he be able to handle Magento, Joomla and other open source apps projects alone? Or I will have to hire developer for each of these applications separately?

Well - this is difficult to answer. If a person is an expert in Magento then I think he must was been handling projects in Magento for at least for 3 years or even more. So, adding up the time for Joomla, Drupal etc this will be around 10 years. A person with 10 years of experience will not be cheap. Good to find a person with around 5 to 6 years of experience who is willing to learn new framework, etc

[vishal1208]

Hi
Well, You are right on your side, to hire team leader who train to your guys. but by using team leader problem can't be solved. I think you will give chance to your guys to handle all the critical sitution and handle any project bugs. If your guys never get any chance to handle sitution then no one team leader can train them.
I think during this period you need to hire part time excellent programmer who can handle all your project.

Vishal
vruvishal@gmail.com