ADVISORY ARTICLE
By Yogi Schulz
Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Successful software development projects, often with superior project management, unleash an insatiable demand for more complex software to be developed even faster and preferably cheaper. Completing more ambitious software goals requires scaling up software development.
At the recent Collision conference, Stephen Deasy, the Head of Engineering at Atlassian, explored the issues that affect scaling software development. Atlassian is a well-known supplier of software development tools, including Jira and Trello. He said, “As you scale your software development, you will encounter various dysfunctional patterns such as too many meetings, a push to add another person to the development team or creating a design that mirrors your org chart. Position your projects for productive success by keeping teams small, developing junior people, and adding entirely new teams when necessary.” Due to aggressive goals, management often pushes project managers too often to ignore this guidance.
Scaling software development is not straightforward. Most non-IT managers intuitively think that simply adding more capacity, meaning people, will produce more software without adverse impacts on schedule, costs or quality. After all, that’s been the long-standing experience with other functions like production, transportation, and warehousing. Unfortunately, this experience is irrelevant and even dangerous when applied to software development.
What should project managers think about when faced with the need to build on software development success? What makes scaling software development different? What are the failed approaches to avoid? What methods can lead to success?
Stephen Deasy reminded his audience of some historical perspectives related to the problem of scaling software development that continues to be valid and relevant in today’s software world.
Project managers can use this experience and related research to diplomatically educate management about the best practices that will produce more successful software.
In 1967, Melvin E. Conway, a computer programmer, stated, “Any organization that designs a system will produce a design whose structure is a copy of the organization’s communication structure.”
Common failures in project organization and software architecture that arise from Conway’s Law include:
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How to cite this article: Schulz, Y. (2024). Difficulty scaling software development? PM World Journal, Vol. XIII, Issue VIII, August. Available online at https://pmworldlibrary.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/pmwj144-Aug2024-Schulz-difficulty-scaling-software-development.pdf
About the Author
Yogi Schulz
Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Yogi Schulz has over 40 years of Information Technology experience in various industries. Yogi works extensively in the petroleum industry to select and implement financial, production revenue accounting, land & contracts and geotechnical systems. He manages projects that arise from changes in business requirements, from the need to leverage technology opportunities and from mergers. His specialties include IT strategy, web strategy and systems project management.
Mr. Schulz regularly speaks to industry groups and writes a regular column for IT World Canada and for Engineering.com. He has written for Microsoft.com and the Calgary Herald. His writing focuses on project management and IT developments of interest to management. Mr. Schulz served as a member of the Board of Directors of the PPDM Association for twenty years until 2015. Learn more at https://www.corvelle.com/. He can be contacted at yogischulz@corvelle.com
His new book, co-authored by Jocelyn Schulz Lapointe, is “A Project Sponsor’s Warp-Speed Guide: Improving Project Performance.”
To view other works by Yogi Schulz, visit his author showcase in the PM World Library at https://pmworldlibrary.net/authors/yogi-schulz/
