(Expansion) – Those of us who are linked to the software industry tend to think about the challenges posed by our activity – that of developing software – in a fairly generic way, and the first thing that comes to mind is “programming”. The truth is that these challenges can vary enormously depending on the type of software, its objective and its life cycle.
The development of a new digital product must necessarily lead us to think about the life cycle of the product, the value that the product must generate, for whom and for how long. A software product is, before a set of programs, a product. And we must treat it as such.
This is not a mere name change: the change from “project” to “product” is profound and significant. For now, it is no longer just enough to meet quality standards in the creation of the software or to generate an application “that works well” or “that does what it should do.”
The creation of software products needs to be understood as a creative, economic and technical activity that encompasses dissimilar disciplines such as Strategic Product Design, Service and Experience Design, Architecture Design, Data, Programming, Automation, Management of the life cycle of the software. product, etc.
For this, it is necessary that when we create a product we make sure to incorporate, as part of our processes and management model, at least three dimensions: business, technical and methodological, all of them with points of intersection.
The business point of view is essential: the conceptual design of the software product must be aligned with both the user’s preferences and the organization’s strategy, the constraints of the business context, the affected people and organizations, etc.
Design, as a discipline that looks after the interests of the business, must guide the life cycle of the product, since the programming of a computer product decoupled from the creation or insertion cycle often led to failures not so much related to the software was not able to complete its mission, but because of design problems, both in terms of the user experience and the product concept or architecture. The creation of the software product is therefore guided by the design from the ground up.
When selecting technologies, it is again important to verify that they meet business requirements. All decisions must be permeated by this premise: from architecture and frameworks to design patterns and deployment strategies. As a product – and not as an application – software has a life cycle that must be considered: How long will it be available for use? How often will the new releases be ? Will it be implemented on your own infrastructure or in the cloud? Will it be offered as a service? The selected technologies must not only be advanced, but also future proof.
From the point of view of methodologies, they must support the complete life cycle of the product that is being created, as well as the many inherent complexities that its use will generate on the part of different groups of users or clients. This means that they must support the management strategy of the product creation team, different business cycles and the creation of the pipeline.
All this must be accompanied by a data strategy that not simply supports decisions, but also allows automation through deep learning or artificial intelligence strategies.
A software development must meet the requirements. A digital product must be a living, strategic and central asset to the organization’s objective, which cannot be decoupled from the business or the brand, and must be understood as such.
Editor’s Note: Juan Bello is Business Head LatAm at GlobalLogic. Follow him on. The opinions published in this column belong exclusively to the author.
