Henrik Gütle, GM of Azure Microsoft Canada, lists the five top drivers of developer velocity and how you should adopt them into your business
Join the DZone community and get the full member experience. If you’re a developer, or a developer team lead, this article offers you actionable insights from a research study conducted by McKinsey & Microsoft that delves into the relationship between Developer Velocity and fundamental business outcomes, such as revenue growth, operating margins, and how quickly a business can innovate. Microsoft worked with McKinsey on this study to further our understanding of the critical role that developers play in the success of organizations around the world. As a company that deeply understands the impact of developers, we’re excited to share these results, and hope the findings will grab the attention of senior business leaders. Our message for them is simple: orienting your organization to prioritize and empower the success of developers is a decisive competitive advantage. Before we dive into the results, let’s take a moment to define Developer Velocity. This terminology refers to the pace at which a team of developers can deliver innovative software that is loved by end users. Developer Velocity goes well beyond the simple pace of delivery though. It’s about helping business leaders understand the value of providing world-class developer tools, structuring working groups to promote autonomous productivity through Agile and DevOps practices, and incentivizing innovation through a culture that fosters psychological safety. The Developer Velocity Index (DVI) was created for this study as a quantitative measure to enable a comparison of Developer Velocity at 400+ global companies. The next step was evaluating the impact of Developer Velocity on business outcomes that matter to every senior business leader. In short, the research study demonstrates that companies scoring in the top 25% of the Developer Velocity Index experience 4-5x faster revenue growth,20% higher operating margins, and 55% higher levels of innovation. While the results of the full research study are intriguing, for the sake of brevity, let’s focus here on the top 5 drivers of Developer Velocity. And if you’re interested, you can find all the details of this research through the “Learn More” links provided at the bottom of the article.
