How to Design the Software Engineering Organization to Deliver Business Value

Too often, software engineering organizations evolve reactively and are shaped by precedent or internal politics in a volatile and rapidly changing business environment, hindering intentional design. To deliver real business value, software engineering leaders should proactively optimize their organizational structures and delivery models to achieve both digital optimization and digital transformation.

Evaluate Alternatives to Design the Software Engineering Organization and Delivery Model

To design an effective software engineering organization that delivers business value, software engineering leaders should begin by understanding the IT operating model (ITOM) targeted by their CIO. This model shapes how talent, performance management, organizational structure and delivery models are configured to achieve business goals. 

Software engineering practices must align with the ITOM and apply its principles to address current challenges. Then, they should assess how effectively their current organization supports business objectives. 

Each organization is unique, shaped by its own competitive needs and internal capabilities. Software engineering leaders must objectively evaluate these strengths and challenges to determine how best to apply their chosen operating model for maximum impact on delivering business value.

Design the Organizational Structure and Delivery Model

The design of a software engineering organization is shaped by industry context, the strategic role of software and the size of the enterprise. Regardless of these variables, every effective software engineering organization incorporates several core functions. These include setting a clear software strategy and roadmap, allocating resources to support those strategies and ensuring delivery through cross-functional teams focused on business value.

A successful organizational structure must address both formal roles and the less visible delivery model. The delivery model helps define how teams interact to achieve outcomes and must be intentionally designed to support digital optimization or transformation.

Building for Flexibility

Adaptability is essential in modern software engineering organizations. Team structures should be designed for flexibility so that value can be delivered quickly across various architectures, domains and designs. Both service-optimized and value-optimized organizations need mechanisms to realign delivery as priorities shift, ensuring that they are expanding, contracting or refocusing efforts as needed. 

While hierarchical structures provide control, networked models enable greater responsiveness. Overly rigid hierarchies can hinder innovation by mirroring communication barriers in system design.

Service-Optimized Operating Model vs. Value-Optimized Operating Model

Now that they have identified which ITOM is targeted by their CIO,  software engineering leaders must choose between the service-optimized and value-optimized models to design the software engineering organization and its delivery approach.

In a service-optimized operating model, IT acts as a highly effective service provider that enables the business. It emphasizes digital optimization through IT’s proactive engagement with business stakeholders. 

Product managers, project management offices, business relationship managers and enterprise architects play key roles in guiding demand management and prioritizing funding decisions. Software engineering leaders typically oversee all internal software initiatives including application selection, development, enhancement, maintenance and modernization.

In a value-optimized organization, IT and software engineering are integral to the business itself. It takes a matrixed approach focused on digital transformation with an emphasis on improving experiences for both internal users and external customers.

Here, responsibility for enterprise applications or analytics may reside outside the core engineering function so leaders can focus exclusively on delivering high-value outcomes through their teams.

This structure flattens hierarchies so more employees contribute directly to strategic goals while reducing overhead costs associated with traditional managerial layers. 

Build The Business Case

By building a strong business case for change, software engineering leaders can help secure buy-in and clearly connect organizational design to measurable value delivery. Software engineering leaders should focus on strategic alignment and value rather than ROI. The business case they build should show how chosen organizational patterns support the business model, strategy, operating structure, and the ITOM.

The framework of the business case begins with the business model and strategy set by the CEO and board. Then, priorities such as cost optimization, innovation, or new product development shape the enterprise structure and should be communicated to teams with results measured against organizational objectives and key results.

The choice of ITOM directly shapes the design of the business case. Software engineering leaders drive digital optimization or transformation by aligning strategic goals with value streams, using either a service-optimized or value-optimized model.

In summary, software engineering leaders should take a proactive approach to refining their organizational structures and delivery models in order to accomplish both digital optimization and digital transformation. By focusing on digital optimization, transformation and maximizing business value, software engineering leaders can ensure their teams are structured for success. 

 

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