The Era of Modern Web Development

Our IT organization started our DevOps transition around 5 years ago. It was initially a grassroots effort, which showed huge potential and presented a fundamental shift in how systems get delivered. In my experience, chances of success are best if new methods are introduced in small teams or projects. A big rollout in the form of training for the whole organization often doesn’t work as well as starting in small teams and coaching them and letting them work as multipliers, replicating the successes of other teams. For us, the adoption of Scrum as an agile methodology happened in a similar fashion, coming out of experiments in a single project team. It required an understanding of the possible impact and support from management to drive the cultural change in the whole organization.

5. Even though you do not measure your team on project deadlines, fast delivery must still be important to you. How are you delivering faster?

Although we still have big launches of new sites, even those are usually “just” another deployment into the production environment. DevOps tools allow us to automate the full delivery pipeline, from system setup, configuration, testing and deployment, which often reduces the delivery of a new version to a click of a button in the build pipeline. The frequency of delivering a new shippable increment of the product is then defined by the Scrum Sprint length, which usually is between 1-4 weeks. This approach allows us to better plan and predicts when certain features can be delivered to the end user.

6. What set of skills do you think is required for Web Development to be successful in the new enterprise landscape?

Users of enterprise software are also users of consumer applications. All of our users get great UX through other web-based products and services, and these applications shape the expectations of our users too. Our job is not only to provide tools to get the job done, but also to make them easy and delightful to use. I think that a more user-centric focus is required and UX expertise should be an embedded skill in every IT organization.

7. Which growing or future technology innovation in Web Development are you personally excited about?

We have been successful in applying microservice principles, which gives us more resilient architecture. Failure of smaller components is much easier to manage than failure of a big monolith. This architecture design also allows us to better organize our teams around these services and assign them full responsibility for the full build and operations lifecycle. We have also started to explore what is possible with Machine Learning Algorithms, and the results are very promising. I see a high potential in delivering a great amount of value to our stakeholders and end users.

8. We are all dealing with technology every day. How does technology drive your life?

Looking back, I think I’ve been an early technology adopter most of my life. I started programming in the 80’s, and lots of technologies have been part of my life since then. I’m curious by nature, and sometimes buy a hyped gadget to explore how well the technology behind it works and how much it can influence our day to day life. Currently I’m enjoying how well Amazon’s Alexa’s voice recognition works already, and how easy it is to integrate new skills. In the end, I’m probably just a regular nerd and technology is an integral part of my life. At least that’s what my girlfriend tells me!