Better development outcomes begin with a product delivery mindset.

Technology decision-makers at mid-market and enterprise organizations struggle with a lot more than application code or even legacy IT environments. These executives take responsibility for legacy technical projects and programs as well—in short, all initiatives requiring ongoing development work by their technical teams.

Building a successful modern application development team takes the right product delivery mindset whether you work in-house or with a development firm. Informed by decades of successful remote Agile development for our clients, this Intelliware post shares our staffing “secret sauce” for development outcome success.

If your projects and programs require development, applying a product delivery mindset to them can help you realize more substantial outcomes.

As part of a broader Agile approach, a product delivery mindset challenges the traditional, top-down waterfall approach centred around following a plan and a process over producing an outcome and adding value.

Product delivery mindset

A product delivery mindset empowers technical professionals and motivates them to focus on successful outcomes. An effective mechanism for promoting a product delivery mindset is creating small and dedicated teams responsible for specific initiatives and outcomes.  Small dedicated teams can apply their specialized skills to find solutions and remove roadblocks.

Assign one initiative to a dedicated team. Enable them to achieve the desired outcomes. And, then repeat.

With a product delivery mindset, a dedicated development team only works on one initiative at a time. At Intelliware, here is how we structure our development teams:

A Product Owner works with the team to provide requirements and establish priorities. Ideally, the Product Owner is someone who works for the client.

A Business Analyst acts as a liaison between the Product Owner, the client and the development team. The BA is responsible for determining the program/project/product requirements, understanding the users and audiences, and ensuring that the team has what they need to create effective solutions.

A Technical Lead works with the team to architect the solution. This is usually a senior developer with the experience and skill needed to identify the most effective and secure mix of technologies, systems, and frameworks.

Agile Developers build and test the solution and the code that they’ve written using Agile practices to effectively and efficiently execute the development roadmap.

UI/UX analysts design the frontend to ensure the best possible user experience, complete with intuitive/predictable user architecture and labels.

A QA Analyst focuses on risk-based boundary and behavioural testing. This technology professional ensures that the delivered solution is robust and of high quality.

A Cybersecurity expert monitors each step. This technical specialist ensures that all development satisfies appropriate security and compliance requirements.

Together, these team members work in a concerted, incremental, and transparent fashion to deliver meaningful business results.

Applying a product delivery mindset to a legacy project or program is not easy without talented individuals working together as a team with a common objective. This approach requires communication, planning, and small and dedicated teams to work effectively—a way of working that is not always compatible with large organizations.

Agile adoption services

Fortunately, a qualified development partner like Intelliware can help facilitate the change you want, gradually and without disruption, by working with and coaching your current technical teams. As part of an Agile Adoption Services model, a partner like Intelliware can work with you to produce results and gradually learn and adopt Agile practices.

Partnership is the secret sauce for development outcome success. Teach your team delivery best practices by working with a learning organization.

The secret to adopting a successful product delivery mindset is “don’t go at it alone.” Work and learn from Agile specialists. Empower your team with best practices. Over time, you will revitalize your technical culture, significantly improve your output AND reduce frustration and churn.

Co-teaming remotely

Can this all be done remotely? Yes. Long before the pandemic, our Agile specialists worked remotely with client teams from across North America to transform their development production processes and cultures. For more than 30 years, Intelliware has coached in-house development teams in Agile best practices to help clients integrate legacy applications and re-platform their systems and programs.

Take your application development to the next level. Contact Intelliware for an accelerated discovery today.

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