Standing in line is for the supermarket, not for software development

Why do humans prefer to get in line rather than get things done? As a CIO, does it make sense for your teams to slowly progress in a mindless course of action that passes the buck to the person in front of you? Suppose your software engineers are idle while waiting for business user requirements to be finalized, a test & QA process to be completed, or an integration to be completed with another third-party application. Why do you think this is okay? Worse yet, why would you ever pay an external software engineering firm that allows this to happen?

From Waterfall to Agile sprints, software development practices for the past 70 years have progressed from activity A to activity B to activity C. Sure, tools have improved, and adopting Agile brought new work habits. However, for the most part, these still required handoffs—one after the other.

It’s time to break that model. There is a confluence of talent, a digitally native workforce, and technologies (cloud, low-code, SaaS, generative AI, and automation) based on the themes of constant collaboration and innovation. As we ask our people to work faster and more effectively, it’s a mandate for leaders to give the tools to be successful.

Employees are more likely to adopt new functionality when using low-code as part of the experience

In a recent study (see Exhibit 1), HFS found that 53% of enterprise decision-making partners cite low-code capabilities as necessary in their ability to adopt and deploy SaaS-based solutions. In fact, one technology leader noted, “Working with our partners, we can quickly use low-code visualization tools to connect workflow and data dependencies as features are available in our HR systems.”

Exhibit 1: Firms are looking for low-code solutions to make it easier to bring new functionality to their users

Sample: HFS and KPMG Research Cloud Adoption Study, 2023; n=624 business and IT decision makers
Source: HFS Research, 2023

Vendors such as Oracle, Salesforce, and ServiceNow are offering low-code tools, increasing adoption of their software; as a result, business teams are using visual coding platforms to access data, adapt workflows, and integrate multiple applications. With this “outside-in” change in software development, non-IT-based users quickly create the processes, workflows, or applications they need to achieve the business outcomes they have been tasked with.

As access to data and time-to-value are critical to firms, and using low-code to connect products, experiences, and outcomes is crucial

Applications are becoming low-code enabled, and data quality is critical to successfully empowering a company-wide change in solution development. In a joint study with KPMG, HFS found as the adoption of low-code increased, further success was hampered by poor data quality. According to a global bank’s low-code platform lead, “Companies must fix their data and create standards for rolling out low-code to be truly successful. Once this happens, the ability to quickly iterate new applications or processes can be significantly improved.”

Data and time-to-value bookend the arch of transformation. The steps along the way, as illustrated in Exhibit 2, include data, product innovation, outcomes, experience, and speed with purpose. Data is the starting point, but dynamic software development for products, workflows, and insights are all essential to the experience this new operating model brings. In our sister report, these stages are further accelerated when software development is augmented by teams using low-code and generative AI to facilitate delivery.

Exhibit 2: Software drives business operating model transformation

Source: HFS Research, 2023

In the past, improving any of these stages would necessitate the collection of requirements, a mandate of goals, and then a pause while software engineers designed, coded, tested, and deployed solutions. As such, each of the six steps lurched forward in unequal progression. With low-code, both business and technology have active parts in transitioning data from an asset into an adaptable, user-centric value creator.

Training is essential to adopting low-code and other emerging software development tools as part of a firm’s modern software development practices

As firms become digitally native, the evolution of software development toward a collaborative business and technology model requires teams in business and technology to work together. Fortunately, many new hires are technically fluent, having been exposed to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) as part of a modern curriculum.

However, as technology advances and changes, firms need to encourage their teams to take a continuous learning approach to achieve and maintain the skills and tools their jobs require to achieve results. A global pharmaceutical firm’s employees felt the key to improvement was having training available. According to Seng Yue Yau, Head of Digital Transformation and TBS IT at Takeda, “Investing in training is part of building the right culture. When people know you are investing in them, they are less likely to worry about automating their job away.” Training users on using low-code tools to design, test, and deploy has led to innovation that started with a single person but spread to thousands.

Adopt a honeycomb software development life cycle to create the buzz needed across technology and business teams

Legacy software development was created to deploy complex, often customized, core systems. This model led to developing software development models tuned for architectures that pre-date today’s hybrid cloud and on-premises delivery models and a workforce more attuned to software workflow and data analysis. Thus, they could be linear in progress from requirements to “go live.”

This traditional software development life cycle progressed logically, ensuring software products met specific stage gates. However, as more software is delivered as SaaS, more customizations are based on bespoke needs. Additionally, application programming interfaces (APIs) and data integration have become more complex. Following this aging paradigm may inhibit the creation of the business solutions employees need to deliver a business’ desired outcomes.

Finally, as generative AI (generative coding) tools make the business user more capable, the ability to understand, adapt, and change how systems work will further boost productivity non-linearly.

Exhibit 3: Software development should represent a honeycomb of productive activity, not a linear progression

Source: HFS Research, 2023

The Bottom Line: Forward-thinking firms must evolve past progress-based linear models and proliferate a modular collaboration model across all parts of software development for business outcome achievement.

The use of software is paramount to achieving the outcomes that both employees and companies desire. As essential as software has become, firms too often abdicate control to technology teams to develop the tools based on a linear model of identifying users’ needs, developing requirements, and then waiting for a product. As business and technology teams evolve to become digitally fluent, following a linear model to get software into the hands of users is as productive as standing in line at a store when a solution can be a few visual clicks away.

Rather than settling for the way we are comfortable doing things, it is essential for companies to embrace change. From a software development perspective, the change is the adoption of a non-linear way of working that allows multiple teams to co-create, collaborate, and change focus as they move quickly from ideation to proof of concept to solution delivery.