Modern Software Development today
At Wipro Ventures, one of the areas that we track is Modern Software Development (MSD) methodologies.
Recently we featured this topic on a panel discussion at the World of Connections conference that Wipro Ventures co-hosted with Nokia Growth Partners Capital and Maersk Ventures on November 19th in San Francisco.
Wipro’s very own Andrew Aitken, GM and Head of the Open Source Practice, moderated a panel on MSD that included Souvik Das, SVP of Engineering at Zenefits; Matt Fornaciari, Founder & CTO of Gremlin; and Marten Mickos, CEO of HackerOne. It was a lively discussion in which the panelists discussed their experiences with, and strategies for, modernizing software development in their respective organizations. One of the key challenges for software development organizations, echoed by each panelist, was that the future holds more of the present: more innovation, more complexity and more risks and rewards.
The main message from this panel discussion was — activities related to modern software development can be categorized into three buckets; Processes, Technology and People, with People clearly being the key element.
Given that speed is a competitive differentiator for enterprises today, Processes and Tooling are geared towards rapid development and assurance that code will ship out on time. In such an environment, Automation becomes a key aspect of the Process and the resulting CI/CD pipelines should be designed accordingly. Enterprises should own the software that they put out and implement processes that focus on iterative code development and testing before it is shipped.
Given the pace at which Technology is evolving, leveraging new technologies becomes imperative, but identifying which technologies to onboard continues to be a challenge. One of the strategies that enterprises can adopt is to deploy new technologies and processes on smaller projects, get some early successes and then scale out if the initial claims and promises have been validated.
On the People aspect, it’s important to note that developers today are more than coders; with the prevalence of open source technologies and software development methods, they also have to be assemblers and collaborators. They need to bring together disparate software components, some of which are developed in-house, and others which are third-party APIs or open-source modules. In addition, developers have to build testable code, understand deployment, be aware of monitoring the code in production and having a multilayered support model in place. Making matters more complex is the growing trend of a distributed and gig workforce within an enterprise. To enable software development in such a setup, the systems should be designed for collaboration, transparency and speed. But no system can replace the focus that enterprises should have on hiring the right people and in coaching and nurturing them.
In summary, the panel’s observation was that Modern Software Development today is less about Technology or Processes and more about solving complex People management challenges in an efficient and effective manner. Modern tools and solutions are necessary but not sufficient; what enterprises also need is the establishment of a common software development culture to reap the full benefits of Modern Software Development.
