A company that can learn faster than its competitors is likely to succeed. It’s not easy to build and maintain a learning and development organization that effectively accelerates technology development, but with the right approach, it can be done. In technology companies, the keys to development acceleration can be categorized into four categories:
- Putting good enough first
Innovation and delighting customers require excellence in technology organizations and their development teams. Waterfall projects cannot reach the unknown, so teams must be ready to move into the unknown to be nimble. Minimum viable products (MVPs) are used in Agile to encourage quick customer feedback. MVPs are crucial tools for developers to learn what they don’t know and build product enhancements in response to market feedback quickly and strategically.
- An extremely competitive market for technology talent
There will be a global shortage of over 85 million technology workers by 2030, resulting in an estimated $8.5 trillion loss of revenue annually. Consulting, freelancers, and other professional contractors are increasingly employed by technology organizations to augment their teams with versatile, highly experienced talent. Added talent to the team allows technology innovators to stay ahead of market demands by introducing novel ideas.
- Eliminating bottlenecks with DevOps
The DevOps methodology strives to maintain a balance between software quality, compliance, security, and velocity. In DevOps, development, and operations teams are brought together through a team culture and processes. A development process that incorporates compliance/stability/security issues is more efficient than one that addresses them after the development process is complete.
- A mindset of an effective executive
Executive leadership-caused organizational bottlenecks are often overlooked or forgiven because of their stature. While the executive team is responsible for making decisions, the organization is responsible for executing them.
Companies that are publicly traded are particularly susceptible to this dynamic because they are often under pressure to maximize their short-term profits. The desire for innovation doesn’t always align with short-term demands when a company is asked to innovate. Innovations over the long run can and must coexist with near-term demands.
The fastest and most effective way to achieve innovation is to create a vivid shared vision – a captivating story that explains why it should be done. As a result, leadership must actively communicate the organization’s vision internally and externally, as well. Leading to long-term growth and innovation starts with establishing the vision and motivating team members across the organization.
Final words
In today’s technology landscape, speed is a key component of competitiveness, but it isn’t the only factor. As a result, it must be determined that a product is valuable to the business and delivered as quickly as possible. When the executive leadership team embraces an MVP strategy, adopts Agile product development and project development methods, acquires talent quickly, eliminates bottlenecks, and establishes the appropriate culture, quick product delivery can be achieved, and maximum business value can be realized.
