The Lighthouse S1 E2: Developer Velocity

Developer Velocity with Mineke de Theije | Arxus

podcast

What is Developer Velocity? And how does it drive business growth?

Change is difficult, for everyone. Our intuitive reaction is almost always resistance. So, that's why it's very important to think carefully about how to guide your people through this process. In this episode of The Lighthouse we're talking to Mineke de Thije, Managing Partner at ChangeLab, about how to implement change faster and more efficiently in your organization. More specifically: how to accelerate software development.

Tue, 17 August 2021

Jochen Van Gasse

Head of Microsoft Business, Arxus

Change starts with management

Any successful change process always starts at the very top of your organization: what's the direction you want to take as a business? You can only start creating awareness about the need for a certain change once you've set a clear goal and once everyone's moving in the same direction as you. It's really important to keep your people informed on why things are changing. And that this message is carried throughout your entire organization.

Sadly, it often stops there: you've announced the upcoming changes, explained why, and then everyone just has to follow along. But, of course, that's not how it works. Just because your people understand why a specific change is needed doesn't mean they want to change on an individual level. And that's a very natural reaction. So, it's crucial to guide your people through the entire transformation process.

Building success through Developer Velocity

Understanding that resistance to change is natural, we can also draw a connection to Developer Velocity, or the speed at which developers create software. Today, software development has become increasingly important to lots of organizations, even for industries that never had to deal with it before. Think, for example, of banking apps which have become a fundamental part of the banking sector. Or online sales tools for the e-commerce industry.

Because of the growing interest in software development, Microsoft conducted a survey among the organizations that were able to quickly and succesfully capitalize on this development trend. They tried to determine the key factors. And looked at the elements that allowed these companies to develop their software faster and with greater success.

Agile mindset

Providing the right people with the right tools is not enough. Drastic changes in your organization should be considered and treated as such. In fact, it requires a different mindset, one that's just as profound, to create the right environment for your developers.

One of the succesful ways to achieve this is with agile work. But you don't just implement this different way of working overnight. Agile goes beyond simply teaching your people the principles of this methodology.

You have to personally lead your developers through the changes that accompany agile working. But not just them, your entire organization has to embrace and propagate this new way of collaborating. And that's exactly why it's so important to monitor changes like these thoroughly.

IT + Business = 3

Besides agile working, there's another important factor to improve your Developer Velocity: establishing a structural link between IT and your business. IT used to be considered as a purely executive, support-based department. But today it has been shifting more and more to leadership level. And it's taking on a role within the business, simply because it's a catalyst.

As a result, software development has become more than just an IT thing, it's part of your business itself. That's why it's essential that both parts of your organization work together in multidisciplinary teams.

Hybrid work

The final key to success? That's been the main protagonist since the pandemic: the ability to work remotely. This flexibility has a positive effect on Developer Velocity. And for most companies, working from home has been a feasable possibility for quite some time now. We've already made that quantum leap.

But now that the external pressure is off and offices are back in business, you can really start embedding this change in your organization. Because, for Developer Velocity, it's essential to continue to choose (some form of) remote working.

This is how to get started

Looking to accelerate your development process too? Great, but where do you even start? First of all, your company's management has to decide which goals they want to pursue. Will it include digital strategy involving software development? Then we definitely recommend reading Microsoft's research. It's very well-written and provides many starting points for analyzing your organization's readiness for change and the best way to implement it.

Also, don't forget to consistently supervise and guide your people. The more effectively you involve them in the change process, the faster you can complete it. And the whole journey will also cost less in the end. And that's ultimately what Developer Velocity is all about: support will pay off.

Help your developers create more velocity

Want to give your devs a little nudge? We're more than happy to tell you how to accelerate your development efforts.

Our experts gladly take a closer look at your development processes | Arxus