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There are three ways to make your software development team 50% better

High-performing software development teams perform 53 percent better in terms of employee experience and productivity than poor employees. This is evident from Gartner’s 2020 Software Engineering Team Efficiency Survey, which explores the factors that determine how effective software engineering teams are in delivering stakeholder value and responsiveness. But what tactics are behind this improvement?

Many software engineering executives believe that the reporting line or physical location of team members determines success, but the study says this is not true. Leaders tend to write good performance at the expense of agility, DevOps, and automation. Yet agility and DevOps are so widely accepted that they make little difference. Software engineering managers need to look elsewhere for opportunities for development.

These opportunities can be found in tactics that promote the autonomy and accountability of software development teams. When leaders enable teams to develop engineering standards themselves, support critical skills, and act as service leaders to overcome obstacles and liaise with different parties, their teams produce excellent results.

Empowering teams to develop standards

Software development standards are important for reducing risk, cost and complexity. However, if they are too restrictive, they can hinder teams from achieving broader business goals. To optimize benefits and limit restriction, software development teams need to be involved in developing the standards that work best for them. As a result, they will be 23 percent more efficient than those that fall short of setting standards. Currently, only 41 percent of software development teams are involved.

To develop standards, teams must gather input from the software development organization as a whole, develop standards as technology and business needs change, and review examine and make recommendations to address situations where standards are inadequate. They need to ensure that user experience, architecture, database design, and integration standards are addressed, as these issues have a strong impact on team effectiveness.

Promoting critical skills

Software development managers who ensure that teams have the critical skills and competencies (needed to achieve goals on their own) eliminate delays and improve results. As skill requirements are constantly changing, good software engineering leaders prioritize the skills and competencies that enable teams to successfully complete their day-to-day workflows. At the same time, they encourage the versatility of team members so that anyone can contribute to a variety of activities. According to our study, teams made up of versatile members are 18 percent more effective than those made up of specialists.

One way to improve versatility is to encourage team members to take on new roles that allow them to develop skills outside their field of expertise. Teams whose members do this are 11 percent more effective

Serving Leadership

When different team members are forced to spend time coordinating activities or performing administrative tasks, it takes time away from value-creating activities. In contrast, teams whose leaders undertake these activities are more effective. If leaders identify and remove obstacles in their path, their teams are 16 percent more efficient. Similarly, when managers undertake coordination with stakeholders such as project managers or management partners, they increase team effectiveness by an additional 11 percent.

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