The Most Important Goal for Software Engineering Managers

Management’s main job is to sell the ideas of a complete development model to both developers and customers.

This thesis comes straight from Winston Royce’s 1970 paper Managing the Development of Large Software Systems.

What are the correct elements for that complete model?

In the 1960s, when engineers developed software alongside hardware, documentation held the central position in the development model. Feedback times were long, so engineers had to analyze and think through their designs on paper. Writing documentation gave developers the best way to crystalize their thoughts and share them with their team.

We’ve come a long way.

Today, we can bootstrap a software company in a day. Tools like Ruby on Rails help you create a basic application in 20 minutes. Infrastructure tools Heroku, Firebase or Netlify let you host your application and make it available to millions of users in minutes. Ubiquitous learning platforms allow you to level up on any skill that you need along the way.

The State of DevOps

Since 2014, researchers have been investigating which practices lead to business success.

Their findings were unbelievable. Companies that invest in automated software delivery practices, also known as continuous delivery, show better profitability, market share, and productivity. The research also showed improvements in effectiveness, efficiency, and customer satisfaction.

The practices come from the realms of both software engineering and product management.

Continuous delivery practices include:

• Version control
• Deployment automation
• Continuous integration
• Trunk-based development
• Test automation.

The product management practices include:

• Shipping small batches.
• Using a lightweight change approval process.
• Incorporating feedback from the customers in the workstream.

The primary job of management

Taking this modern research into account, we can now clarify the main job of software engineering management today: to sell the ideas of continuous delivery to developers, product managers, and executives.

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📋 About Milo

I am a tech executive, writer, speaker, entrepreneur, and inventor. I’ve been developing software since 1995 and developing teams for over a decade. 🚀

I write articles about software, engineering, management, and leadership.

You can also follow me on Twitter. 🐦