Developer Velocity and culture
You might have heard about the research that McKinsey performed on Developer Velocity. If not, it’s a great read and you should definitely have a look at it here: How software developers can drive business growth | McKinsey
I have seen and been part of many development teams in my career. Developer Velocity is not about developers only. You have to look at the entire team, all the professionals involved, including management. It’s also not only about technology, although the research shows that having access to world-class tools is a big driver for increasing Developer Velocity. In fact, Developer Velocity is not only about speed, it's about empowering teams to drive business value.
I have decided to start blogging about things I care about in my professional life (which is — let’s be honest here — in itself also a big part of my personal life). Developer Velocity is a subject that has many touch points with the things I do on a daily basis. I’m Remco and I am an Azureholic, I admit. In posts to come, I will definitely talk about all the geeky stuff you can do with Microsoft Azure, amazing tools you can use, DevOps and software architecture. Most of it will tie in with Developer Velocity, because I strongly believe it is a key driver for organizations, teams and persons in general to be successful.
So you might be surprised that my first blog post is not about technology at all, it’s about culture. The research show that organizations that create a culture that fosters psychological safety, will outperform organizations that don’t. Changing culture is one of the hardest challenges an organization can face. You can adopt all the technology, tools and agile processes you want, culture will be a key driver in succeeding delivering business value and growth at the speed of light.
Experiment, fail and learn
Agile practices will help you iterate and provide a way of working in small steps. But it doesn’t work when you only have the rituals and not the culture. Managers should have a mindset of facilitating the team, inspiring them to grow and not just oversee the work. I’m in IT for 30 years and I still don’t know it all, and I never will. But I learn every day, especially when failing (yes, believe it or not, but it happens).
So having a culture that allows experimentation, play around with technology and finding out if they work or not for a specific use case is not necessarily looked at as a productivity KPI. Agile practices help you to fail fast and learn all the time without big impact on the business. Creating a safe environment and encouraging people to experiment will definitely pay off in the long run. Continues improvement is a valuable factor in increasing the Developer Velocity. Your teams should feel free to speak up and suggest improvements. And this not only applies to technology, but also to the rituals, the way of working and processes and guidelines that are in place. Being able to adapt and change on all aspects of the work is a valuable quality. Applaud risk-taking, because it might surprise you, and if it didn’t it’s okay too.
War on talent
Talent is hunted and people change jobs all the time. Hiring new people is hard and expensive. Retaining your workforce is key, so workforce happiness should be a top priority. Culture and management style are important factors. People will come and work for you when the salary is right, they get a shiny laptop and a nice car and other benefits, but nobody will stay for those reasons alone. So retaining people is about inclusiveness, recognizing their achievements and help them unleash their talent and let them grow.
Most of the professionals are not even working in IT, since every company is becoming a software company. In retail e.g. we see a big uplift in hiring IT professionals and software development specialist. Making an impact and being provided with interesting challenges is what make people want to come to work with a smile every day. Of course we all have to perform tasks that may not be our most favorite thing to do, but you have to challenge people and keep the work interesting. I will reflect more on this in a future post about Low Code. Low Code platforms, like Power Platform, will not only connect citizen developers with pro developers, but will help challenging them both. Those connections will also inspire people and increase Developer Velocity.
Challenge habits and grow by hiring diverse
You might be great in retaining your workforce. I’ve seen several companies where people tend to stay for a long time, and in itself that’s a major achievement. But it turns out that certain habits will never be discussed, it’s just the way we do things around here. Mixing up people of different age, experience, skills, genders and culture is proven to be very healthy. If you have a “speak-up” culture where people feel safe, new people can point out habits that might be candidate to change, where you had never thought about it twice. They tend to bring a fresh view and perspective on things and you should be able to benefit from that. Diversity will balance your team and surprise you. Diversity will enrich your teams.
I’m considered to be a senior and coach and guide early in career team members. But some of them have such a fresh view on the world that I feel myself guided and coached also and that’s the balance you want to achieve within your teams and organization.
Final thoughts
Increasing Developer Velocity — fuel business performance — has many aspects. Culture is definitely one of them. I’ve shared my personal thoughts and experience on this subject, but I am no expert on this and there is a lot more to say about culture. I think a lot of it is common sense though and the McKinsey research shows that it is important to keep looking at yourself, your team and organization.
No worries, we will be discussing tech stuff in future posts. I thought this was important to start with.