The other day a developer asked me what we really know about business optimization; after all, developers build software not run businesses.
I would suggest that the right kinds of developers are exactly the right people to help with business optimization. I say help because no one person should be responsible for business optimization; it should be something done by everyone in your business and any external advisers as a team. No one person has all the answers and every business is different.
So if you are great developer what talents and skills can you bring to the table? Great developers:
- Regularly work with clients to define business processes, data flows and other business domain knowledge,
- Ask questions like when, why and how?
- Focus on the problem first and then the solution so the solution is not pre-constrained,
- Are problem solvers,
- Can see the forest and the trees,
- Are team players,
- Are innovative and figure out better ways of doing things in the future,
- Remove redundany and waste (optimizing),
- Are experts at working with data, measurement and supporting better decisions,
- Understand one or more business domains.
Here at Sunwapta Solutions we have been focused on building software while doing all of these things.
Do we have all the answers? Again, business optimization is a team effort.
But we can help get the solutions you need as part of your team (and have been doing so for many years).
This is what every great developer should strive to do.
