Developer Velocity

Developer velocity is the ability to drive transformative business performance through software development. Manufacturers embracing digital technologies need to be aware of the factors driving developer velocity as it will help them focus their efforts, so they get more out of their investments in staff and time.

Companies in the top quartile of the Developer Velocity Index (DVI) outperform others in the market by four to five times. Top-quartile companies also have 60 percent higher total shareholder returns and 20 percent higher operating margins.

The companies getting it right also tend to rank higher in innovation, customer satisfaction, brand perception, and talent management so it’s clearly not just a back-office, hidden department type of initiative.

So what are the key factors to success? As always, the answers are people, processes, and tools!

How your company works and grows together is the biggest impactor of developer velocity. The top four areas of focus are:

A product-oriented structure for delivering business value was the second biggest factor impacting high developer velocity after psychological safety.

Many manufacturers may already have a product-oriented structure to their physical operations, but it becomes important to think about how digital operations align inside that view.

If you’re embracing new models through servitisation, extending your value chain into the B2B2C world, or going directly to the customer, your digital offering is likely to be critical. Businesses are wary of insecure code in their supply chain and end-user customers are fed up with poor software. You need to be embracing dedicated product manager roles to any technology that is shipping to customers.

How you build your technology team and retain them is the third key cultural factor to being able to offer significant business value using technology.

Acquiring developers as a manufacturer can be hard. We regularly hear from manufacturers about difficulties attracting people. The biggest issues I see are salary, 100% in the office, and this question of talent management.

In the in-depth study into some of the top performing leaders, Capital One addressed some of their talent management and recruitment gap through an in-sourcing process:

In contrast, ABN AMRO took a decision to integrate external organisations and contractors:

Ultimately, whether you grow your team through permanent employees or — term relationships with service providers, you need to spend time on making sure people are retained, rewarded, and valued.

Product management heavily influences processes but additional areas around team structure, compliance and security, and technology debt management are also big factors.

Effective compliance and security processes and “baking them in” to the technology workflow is critical to being able to deliver quality software to solve your internal needs or those of your customers.

The final area that helps you deliver the most value from technology is tools — the technology you use to ensure the right thing gets built, quickly, effectively, and with good quality.

The top ten areas to invest in tools for your teams are:

For companies with fewer developers and are not involved in making software generally, public cloud adoption, low- or no-code tools, and AI assistance can make much bigger gains. This gels with our experience providing no-code tools that use AI to help people in different business units develop digital automations to solve problems.

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