Five Steps to Engineering and Delivery Excellence

Engineering excellence includes design quality, code quality, standards and compliance, plus automated unit testing and security. As discussed in the whitepaper, The Perfect Engineering Storm, at the heart of engineering, is the people who make the development happen. Extended teams are the resources, i.e., people, needed for any development project lacking a complete in-house team. Here, we look at five steps to take towards not only delivery and engineering excellence but 'people' excellence.

Step 1: Create a skills matrix for resources

Engineering leaders start by creating a skills matrix to confirm the skills, knowledge, and interest of team members—these knowledge models design frameworks for people development on different levels and within various technologies. Additionally, continuous update of the matrix allows project leaders to quickly establish and identify which skills are needed or lacking to complete a project successfully.

Step 2: Provide the ability for staff to complete certifications

Just as with medical professionals, engineers need to update their certifications to stay up-to-date and relevant continually. Sponsorship and quality support to pass any engineering certification, are vital for skills and knowledge development. To recognize the high level of professionalism among developers, providing certification sponsorship and support is no longer a nice-to-have, but a clear career requirement.

Step 3: Offer in-house or external training

In line with providing certification sponsorship, ongoing training becomes a standard to develop excellent engineering teams. To stay sharp, developers require various skill and knowledge development training. For diversity and advancement, training should include career direction change and preparation for vacancies.

Step 4: Encourage (and sponsor!) conference attendance

Conferences allow for training and certifications within days instead of weeks or months. However, sending employees to a meeting, or hosting an in-house conference can be costly. As in-person conferences canceled due to contagion concerns, many sessions are now often on a digital-only platform, often at lower attendee costs. Either way, company sponsorship of external and internal (virtual) conferences to gain and share experience and expertise is another crucial step in maintaining a superior development workforce.

Step 5: Build communities for information sharing

While training and certifications may be distinct steps to developing excellent engineers, creating a community is often overlooked. Engineering communities allow developers to absorb and share information about technical challenges, lessons learned, and solutions implemented. Building company internal and external development communities lead to long-term comradery, creates a sense of ownership and pride, and allows developers to invest in their projects' success fully.

Putting the steps together

People are at the heart of SOFTware SERVEices. The interconnection, relationship, and proper evaluation are critical to achieving organizational goals. Building an excellent pool of resources, ready when needed, requires communication, empowerment, respect, and honesty. Often, software vendors and enterprises do not have the time, money, or location to build and develop their own exceptional teams in-house.

Extended Team services deliver quality, talented people, fully and fairly evaluated to meet all standards and needed expectations. With over 10,000 successful projects completed, SoftServe has been the trusted product development and design partner to many of the most innovative and respected companies worldwide. To learn how our team of innovators, certified ethical hackers, and data security experts empower clients to transform their business, contact SoftServe today.