How Can You Not Want One?
Dear CEO,
This post is for you (but the rest of you readers are welcome to read on as well).
Today, I have a special offer for you. An offer that will make your life so much easier that you’ll wonder how you ever managed without it.
Your competitors might already have one, but they probably keep it a secret. They don’t want the rumor to spread. After all, why should they give up their edge? But now you can have one too.
OK, enough with the build-up.
What Do You Do When….
When your company needs to increase its profits you have two choices: you can find a way to generate more revenues or reduce the company’s expenses. And if you can, why not do both?
But how do you do that? Again, you have two choices. You can make some decisions such as raising the price of your products, or cutting salaries. This decisions will not work if they are arbitrary. Arbitrary decisions rarely do. So, your second option is to have someone who is responsible for coming up with creative (and well-thought-of) ideas to improve the company’s balance sheet.
How will you know if such an idea was good or not? Well, since it is all about money, you will be able to see its impact on the numbers. It’s not about theory. It’s about results!
Sounds reasonable, doesn’t it? Nothing too innovative about that. But things are not as simple as they seem.
Introducing: The Missing C_something_O
You already have someone responsible for such business optimizations. Or maybe you do it yourself to some extent. But do you and your staff really consider all the optimization options? Do you really make the most of what you’ve got?
In a software development organization, a great deal of your expenses are dedicated to… software development. Can you really say these expenses are optimized? Maybe, just maybe, you can get more for the same money.
Stop! If you happen to be thinking something like “Yeah! Let’s drop some more work on the RnD departments” — don’t! This would be as much an optimization as it would be to decide to turn off the electricity between 11:00 AM and 2:00 PM. It would save a lot on electricity, but overall would cost more than it saves. This is not what optimization is all about.
Optimization is about coming up with strategic solutions for making software development more effective. It is about reducing the cost of software development and increasing the value of the products you create. Optimization is about addressing long-term needs while balancing them with short-term constraints.
The challenge is doing this optimizing in the field of software development. Not anyone can do it. One must have strong understanding of software development. One should also accept the fact that no single optimization is suitable for every project and every team. Someone should lead it, set the goals, and create the conditions needed to achieve them.
The missing senior executive is someone who has what it takes to lead development departments and groups to the realization that software development can and should be optimized. With the help of his delegates in each department, he will be able to help development teams improve the way they develop software.
Software development optimization is like any other optimization. It’s not just “nice to have” — It’s a necessity. It’s not about “doing it by the book” — It’s about the future of your company. It’s not about theory — it’s about results!
But without someone responsible and accountable for optimizing software development in your staff, chances are that you will keep getting less than you could for your money.
Now, tell me: how can you not want one?
