Modernizing the Enterprise Monolith Executive Roundtable: 5 Take Aways
EQengineered had the opportunity to bring together senior executives from leading Boston organizations interested in learning and sharing with peers. Below are 5 take aways from the "Modernizing the Enterprise Monolith" discussion.
Agile in the enterprise presents new challenges. As larger organizations embrace agile, emerging frameworks such as scaled agile provide guidance for coordinating multiple teams. Frustrated expectations from cross-team dependencies can risk eroding the process over time and cause individual teams to act in isolation. Focus on a clarity of the business process to be followed, quality of code, and effective delivery to resolve deadlock challenges that will surface.
There is a need for greater transparency and a cohesive narrative when creating and implementing project governance and policies. Following poor or faulty practices to get products out the door benefits no one. Instilling discipline in best practices, for both B2B and B2C organizations, yields better results. This is imperative when considering parameters associated with data and privacy.
Technology leadership requires a knowledge of hard skills and effective management through soft or professional skills. Large projects require a forum where architecture lives in and is communicated across the teams, not via a top down, ivory tower architectural directive. Team leadership must also understand the needs, growth and ambitions of their team at an individual level.
Unencumbered communication across the executive, business and technology teams is essential to success. Building consensus around the vision, and translating down to tasks and actions is the only way to achieve real results. Egos need to be checked at the door to influence effective outcomes in large scale technology initiatives.
Challenges can exist both with retention of talent and with skillsets becoming more stale of long term contributors. Aligning personal goals and needs of the organization remains a challenge when hiring, and is made harder in technologies which come and go quickly and pressure developers to stay on the cutting edge.
Conclusion
If you are interested in learning more, below is EQengineered's consulting green paper focused on "Modernizing the Enterprise Monolith."