Software Engineering Acquisitions: A Story in Two Graphics | Market Insights™
OBJECTIVE of software engineering startup acquisition
TYPE OF FIRM acquiring software engineering startups
OBJECTIVE of software engineering startup acquisition
TYPE OF FIRM acquiring software engineering startups
The Linkedin 2018 Workplace Learning Report is out and takes the pulse of the current L&D trends.
The survey is based on the responses from 1,200 L&D or HR professionals, 400 people managers, 200 executives and 2,200 learners from North America, Europe, and Asia.
However, from a developer’s perspective, the results of the report seem… troubling. L&D and HR professionals, as well as people managers and executives, appear to pay a ton of attention on the development of soft skills of employees while the development of technical skills, as part of a company’s L&D program, seems of little significance. Let’s have a closer look at some of the results.
According to the survey, “talent developers are preparing their workforce for automation by naming ‘training for soft skills’ their #1 priority”; and it makes sense, right? You want your employees to be ready for the automation that DevOps brings as its core, therefore, you invest in the development of soft skills among your employees so that they have the knowledge to navigate the new age of company culture.
But what about the actual developers; the people behind the development of these automations? Why don’t they enjoy that generous of a share of a company’s resources for the development of their skills, the technical skills to be more precise?
When talking about DevOps, developers carry a huge part of the burden through the automation process and, as Yugal Joshi argued, “they’re not at all pleased with that and believe that they are being asked to address IT operations’ laggardness”.
Attracting and managing talent will require both programmatic and innovative measures
The next-generation IT operating model requires enterprises to reimagine their supply model to define the role of IT service providers so that each offers unique value-add in an increasingly contingent labor ecosystem and a proliferating technology landscape
IT teams must consider key technology and cultural elements as they transition to outcome-oriented agility stacks/pods (Stack+Pod), a model that will enable them to create true business value
If IT is to create true business value, the monolithic IT services stack must be realigned from siloed towers to outcome-oriented agility stacks/pods
Technology advances are collapsing the IT stack both within and across the stack layers
Companies frequently ask us at Everest Group if the benefits a devops team can be delivered in a distributed labor model. In other words, can a company configure a devops team to operate with part of the team in one onshore location and other part of the offshore or in a different onshore location? To be clear, there is currently a significant debate around this question. Many tech companies and new service providers emphatically say devops can’t work in a distributed model. But legacy service providers with large investments in offshore talent factories argue that It absolutely can work and point to examples in which they are utilizing components of a devops model in an offshore and distributed manner.
Legacy service providers have a strong vested interest in maintaining their current offshore factories, which are highly leveraged with cheap junior resources and are working hard to persuade their customers that the offshore models only need an injection of devops technology. However, none of them appear to be running at the productivity level – or even close to the level – of devops teams that are not in a distributed model.
One of the keys to successful digital initiatives is quick release of better application functionalities. Enter DevOps, the philosophy of automating the entire infrastructure set-up, quality assurance, environment provisioning, and similar processes to quicken the pace of application delivery. Everest Group research suggests that 25 percent of enterprises believe that DevOps will become the leading model for their software development lifecycle (SDLC) in the next three to five years. While this number appears small, I am quite upbeat seeing it.
But, let’s step back for a moment. What if SDLC was no longer a lifecycle with different demarcated teams but instead a point in time that kept repeating itself? This “no SDLC” concept would make discrete processes within the traditional SDLC disappear or collapse (not compress) into one. Enterprise shops wouldn’t have to fret over these processes anymore.
All the above will eventually tie to the nirvana of the as-a-service economy. It’s the software development equivalent of buying a car and maintaining it for years, versus getting a new, worry-free car every day (sounds like Uber, right?).
The current no SDLC wave is about compressing the processes to blur the lines between the different phases. Once the above future is achieved, no SDLC will expand to make the processes unnecessary, rather than shifting responsibilities outside the enterprise. Organizations that really want to succeed in the digital world must strive towards this goal and commit to a no SDLC world.
To optimize DevOps value and maximize QA relevance, QA must extend to the operations phase
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