In our 20-plus years of experience working with software companies, we’ve seen more than our fair share of CEOs struggle to grow the business because their product is holding them back.
Simply put, their R&D team can’t build what their customers or the market wants fast enough or sturdy enough to serve as a foundation for future growth or innovation. So, they attempt to solve the problem by hiring a) a software architect, b) a software developer, or c) a project manager, all in an effort to de-risk and accelerate the process. But invariably, each of these choices leads to mild or moderate improvements, at best. Here’s what usually happens.
Hiring a Software Architect
Years ago, I met a famous architect in Chicago who had designed and built impressive buildings around the world. I introduced myself as a software architect, and without skipping a beat, he pointed a finger at me and said, “You’re not licensed.” He was right, and we both had a good laugh about it. To most software developers, the title of software architect is simply a step up from software engineer, but that’s not true. And there is no licensing body to tell you that someone with the title of Software Architect has the experience, instinct, vision, skill, creativity, pragmatism, business acumen, or raw leadership ability to quickly and efficiently turn your idea, concept, or market opportunity into a commercial-grade, revenue-generating software platform or system that will stand the test of time. After all, that’s what you want — and, dare I say, even expect — when hiring a software architect, isn’t it? Sadly, this rarely meshes with reality. Sometimes you end up with a really competent person who can grasp the vision, define the standards, and guide your team but not lead them. Other times you end up with someone supremely full of themselves and so sure about everything that you feel they must really have it together — only to find out months later, after doing everything they tell you to do, that they’ve painted you into a corner and fostered resentment in your team. When they can’t make the rubber meet the road, they’re quick to blame everyone else but themselves. Be careful not to put too much hope into just one person.
Hiring a Software Developer
You recognize that software development is highly labor-intensive, with around 95% of R&D costs going to payroll and contractors. But you need more throughput, higher development velocity, more horsepower. So you hire another software developer. Whether this is an employee or a contractor, it’s really just a difference in contract and compensation. Throwing another body at the problem is sometimes exactly what you need — more fingers pounding away at keyboards. And you will generally get a positive result in terms of somewhat shortened delivery schedules, a few more features in every release, etc. And that’s if you hired someone solid. Experience shows that two software developers with a similar amount of experience and with the same long list of tech acronyms on their resumes can differ in productivity by up to 30x, depending on the task. Did you make the right choice? You won’t know for at least 90 days. And even after you see some acceleration in software development, you’ll be doing the math and wondering if it was worth it. Again, maybe another pair of hands pounding on a keyboard isn’t good enough.
Hiring a Project Manager, Development Manager, or Scrum Master
The days of waterfall development processes, large requirements teams, and project management done in MS Project are behind us all. Good riddance! Instead, you’re all in on Agile, Scrum, two-week iterations, counting points, etc. So all better, right? If you’re hitting your dates, staying on budget, keeping your customers happy, and staying competitive, it’s doubtful you’re reading this article! Most likely, you’re having trouble with all of these things. You know your developers are solid, trustworthy people, but maybe you need someone to own and drive the development process and help manage your developers — someone to herd the cats, as they used to say. So you hire someone you can hold accountable because it’s so hard for you to hold your devs accountable. Initially this makes you feel better because you have clear accountability for all your other departments, but not really for R&D. But have you really fixed anything? Is the gap you’re trying to fill a management gap? Or is it a leadership gap — perhaps specifically a technical leadership gap? You don’t need more spreadsheets, more overhead. You don’t need a JIRA accountant. You just need to hit your dates, keep on budget, and not be surprised all the time. The way to do this is to bridge your gap in technical leadership and grow a culture of ownership and accountability within your team. You do this instinctively in other aspects of your business, and it makes sense to do the same in software R&D, but hiring a PM, DM, or SM isn’t going to get you there. In fact, most often this slows down development instead of accelerating it — and the level of actual risk mitigation depends exclusively on the interpersonal abilities of the person you hire.
Where do you go from here?
So whose fault is all this? On the surface, it might seem convenient to point the finger of blame at the CEO. After all, this was her idea.
But, it’s not her fault.
In fact, it’s not even the fault of the software architect, software developer, or project manager. This strategy doesn’t work because one person can’t do all the things necessary to solve the problem.
If you really stop to think about what goes into software product research, design, and development, it takes a village.
You need:
- An architect to ensure the infrastructure is well constructed and the software is scalable, flexible, and secure, and can reliably support your customers and users
- A UX designer to ensure your products are easy to use and navigate to needed features and solutions
- A software developer (or several) to build new features that keep customers and prospects happy and generate the net new revenue you need
- A development operations team (DevOps) to ensure someone is focused on keeping the lights on and the product available at all times
- A reliable platform that allows users 24/7 access to the product regardless of their location
- And of course, competent and mature technical leadership to hold it all together and make your people, process, and technology work in ways that multiply the positive impact of each
At a minimum, this team would have a starting cost of $750,000 a year — and that doesn’t include health insurance, retirement, and all the quirky extras software developers have come to expect from their employers, like catered lunches, gourmet coffee, massages, and more (thanks, Google).
Even if a software business has a team of four or five developers (or even 20 or 30), it’s still hard to match all the needs of the business with the skills and experience of the people on your team.
So given how difficult and expensive it is to build an effective and efficient software R&D team, it’s not surprising that many CEOs turn to outsourcing as a way to reduce risk and accelerate software development. There’s no shortage of consulting firms promising the best people at the best rates, certified scrum masters, and a blend of on-shore and off-shore resources that make the value proposition more compelling. Another advantage of outsourcing is that you’ve got one throat to throttle if things go wrong — leverage and accountability are a good thing, and you’ve been missing both with respect to your own R&D team. This option seems really attractive.
But this path, too, is usually fraught, especially for software companies for whom software development is a profit center and not a cost center — and who have to churn out commercial-grade software that’s built to last.
First, you have to send your IP overseas, typically to Asia, where the developers working on your code today could be working on your competitor’s code in six months. Then you have to deal with the time zone difference — with the flexible hours of off-shore firms, at most, you’ll get three hours of overlap with your team in the U.S. You also have to deal with the “over-the-wall” approach to design, development, QA, deployment, etc. Things get lost in translation. Context and nuance get lost, quality suffers, your IP is more at risk, and the bottom-line value isn’t ever as good as it looks initially. Sometimes off-shore teams are so cheap you may even think, “Who cares if things don’t work out? It’s cheap!” But what do you do when 30, 60, or 90 days go by and you have nothing to show for it? Sure, the labor was cheap — but that’s 90 days you weren’t getting net new recurring revenue. The opportunity costs of outsourcing can be huge if you get it wrong.
But you know the status quo won’t hold. Your existing internal development team needs some help.
Here’s why it’s better for software companies to bring in a technology partner to de-risk and accelerate software development.
We’re not talking about outsourcing here. Imagine instead that you could find a technology partner that gets it. That understands your goals and assumes them as their own. That has the mature leadership, serious talent, and experience to fill the gaps in your team and help them de-risk and accelerate software development and increase development velocity dramatically in less than 90 days.
Before we get further, let’s recap:
- Your team, while committed, may not have the experience in modern technologies that your customers are demanding. They have the domain expertise needed to understand customer needs and can confidently maintain your existing product suite, but they may not have the skills to take you to the cloud, the web, or mobile.
- Your internal team wants to focus on delivering innovation to satisfy goals for customer growth, but they don’t have the time or talent to build out modern new platforms.
- Your team’s plates are already full, and they can’t take their eye off the ball to handle the things you need to drive your business forward.
- Your goal is to grow the business, but you don’t really want to add more developers to your internal team.
- You don’t have the means (or the stomach) to swing $750,000 to build a proper team that can handle everything.
What if I told you that you could keep the talented team you have, achieve your hefty business goals, and only invest $15,000 per month to do it all?
I know…too good to be true.
But it’s not. It’s real. It’s actionable. And it’s within reach.
Modularis is standing by and ready to hit the ground running to supercharge your software development team and software business. We have the leadership, maturity, skills, and talent you need, along with the technology and experience to truly de-risk and accelerate software development and make it all work. And you can have it all for what you’d pay to hire just one architect, one developer, or one manager.
Download our comparison guide to see how we make it happen.