DevEx lessons from HTEC's 'Orchestrating developer delight' keynote
Whether developers emerge from a software project inspired or burned out largely depends on the developer experience (DevEx).
DevEx refers to the quality of a dev team’s work environment and interactions with it, from the setup and installation of equipment and tools to ease of use to how satisfied developers feel about the finished product.
Companies that invest in DevEx can increase productivity, speed up time to market, and retain talent. Gartner research shows that teams with high-quality DevEx are 31% more likely to improve delivery flow and 33% more likely to attain their target business outcomes.
Improving developer productivity and reducing friction (slow feedback loops, complex workflows) are at the heart of DevEx. Naturally, these were also the main themes at the first DevEx Connect Summit in Manchester, UK, held on October 29-30. The event featured over 450 attendees and 47 speakers, and it brought 19 regional DevEx communities together.
HTEC was proud to give a keynote presentation at DevEx Connect titled, “Orchestrating developer delight”, that explored vital aspects of DevEx, namely, how to uncover development inefficiencies and improve developer productivity and satisfaction.
Here are some highlights from the keynote presentation delivered by Milan Stokic , HTEC’s head of technology, enterprise software services.
The challenge of resolving developer inefficiencies
At its core, DevEx is a process for building a foundation that allows developers to be more efficient. However, development inefficiencies are a serious issue across industries. During his keynote, Milan pointed out that, according to a Stripe’s “Developer Coefficient” report, global GDP losses from developer inefficiencies sit at approximately $300 billion annually.
In addition, HTEC research shows that 70% of overhead in development teams go to productivity-killing activities such as finding information, waiting on slow feedback loops, and cognitive friction (i.e. the frustration that arises when developers fail to understand a system or tools). Only 30% of overhead goes to efficient value-add software delivery.
A well-orchestrated DevEx program will reduce all that friction by half and double the value-add software delivery to 60%, Milan said. Nevertheless, he warns that rather than blindly following common DevEx best practices and metrics such as devops research and assessment (DORA) and satisfaction and well-being, performance, activity, communication and collaboration, and efficiency and flow (SPACE), organizations should think about which metrics and best practices fit their specific needs.
“DORA and SPACE are great metrics for measuring team performance, but you end up only addressing pieces of the development process. You are fixing symptoms rather than coming up with a cure.” — Milan Stokić, Head of Technology, Enterprise Software Services at HTEC
A true DevEx approach utilizes common metrics but also relies on asking developer teams, via surveys, what activities are taking up time and impacting productivity.
The most common time-consuming activities, based on HTEC surveys, are:
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“Hearing about these issues directly from developers helps you validate your quantitative metrics and gives you insights into the state of your organization,” Milan said.
People, process and technology: A holistic approach to DevEx
When helping companies implement a DevEx program, HTEC focuses on the following four areas to address developer inefficiencies:
Only when you factor all four areas together can you achieve a holistic view of your DevEx program, Milan said, adding that HTEC’s holistic approach to DevEx is broken down into the following equation:
People (represented by DevEx) + Process (represented by developer satisfaction) - Technology (which reduces waste and friction) = Developer Productivity!
“The problem is that the majority of companies just focus on developer productivity, but it’s the people, processes, and technologies that determine the success of developer productivity.” — Milan Stokić
Watch this video for the entire “Orchestrating developer delight” keynote presentation, which includes more details on HTEC’s DevEx strategies and the importance of “value stream mapping”.
Be a DevEx advocate, don’t rely on AI
Companies, especially the C-suite, tend to use artificial intelligence (AI) as a crutch and ask to inject AI into every phase of the software development cycle.
Milan recommends resisting this approach.
“In our experience, the best way to introduce AI to dev teams is to build a software development foundation first and then plug in AI for things like semantic search and retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) to help your developer community get fast, accurate answers to their queries,” Milan said.
“But quickly attaching tools like AI-based code assistance does not improve developer performance, based on our surveys.”
Summing up DevEx Connect, Milan said the event’s emphasis on the importance of community should inspire developers to become DevEx evangelists.
“To implement DevEx into an organization, dev teams need to be the company advocates; they need to build a culture and community that will help preach about the benefits of DevEx.”
Ready to discover how HTEC can support your DevEx projects? Connect with an HTEC expert.