You may be running an online bookshop, a consulting agency, or a food delivery service. In this story, your industry vertical isn’t relevant. However, if you ship some sort of software, you’re in the software business. There’s no way around this.
Someone needs to deliver this product. Enter: the delivery team. These people need to know their stuff, be effective, and be efficient. It’s up to you to organize them. After all, it’s your organization’s culture that will make or break the project.
Of course, it’s impossible to find a successful recipe to run a team. There’s no such thing as one-size-fits-all in the digital world. However, one thing is certain.
Collaboration between team members needs to be extremely strong. This applies to companies large and small.
Here, we’ll talk about collaborative delivery teams, their best practices, and ways to deliver better software, faster.
The definition
First things first. What’s a delivery team? It’s a way of organizing your software team in such a way so that every professional required to deliver a product is within it.
It’s a way of avoiding having a bunch of people with excessively similar skill sets. Each professional needs to fit a specific role so that all may work in unison, with the greatest efficiency.
The main roles
Since we’re talking about collaboration here, it’s also important to define the most common roles. Who do you need to make a software product? Here’s a non-exhaustive list.
The product manager is there to advocate for the customer. They ought to understand the goal and purpose of the product you’re making. Their keen eye for detail should find the best ways to improve said product.
The designer is focused on usability. More often than not, you’ll be working with a UI/UX (user interface or user experience) designer who makes sure the users can do what they want without much hassle. You definitely require a specialist to achieve the best results.
And then there’s the developers. Ideally, you should have a few of these. Can’t do without them. They write the actual code you will later ship.
Finally, there are the quality assurance (QA) experts, who should be there from the get-go to oversee the development process to ensure that the team is using the best practices for the highest quality.
The optional roles
The following aren’t mandatory but can be helpful in larger projects.
First, there’s the DevOps specialist, who brings together software development and IT operations. This role is great for container orchestration and continuous integration pipelines.
And then there’s the software architect who makes high-level design choices that impact the overall system and the way it works. Unlike the user-oriented designer, architects focus on the nuts and bolts behind the scenes and on a more general level.
So how do we get all these people to work together? What are the best ways to build collaborative delivery teams?
Keep the lines of communication open
Communication in the context of collaborative delivery teams seems like a no-brainer.
Yet, somehow, many managers still ignore it. The connection between team members and senior leaders needs to be strong. Break down information silos and build trust and transparency instead.
Everyone is working towards the same goal anyway, regardless of their background or experience levels. It’s precisely this diversity of thought that can create a well-rounded perspective.
There are several ways of achieving better rapport. Asynchronous communication is one such technique.
It does away with all the pressure of face-to-face talk or video calls. Instead, everyone may reply once they’ve finished their task.
Mull it over, then respond. It helps challenge assumptions, have difficult conversations, and make decisions through a more objective lens.
After the project release, it’s good to have a retrospective. Assess the outcome and find a way to improve delivery. Quickly address problems and make sure you end with a clear action plan.
Make sure you pick the right tools for the job
Speaking of action, no one really wants to complete tedious tasks manually. This is where automation should integrate into the workflow. Collaborative delivery teams can then focus on delivering customer value instead.
Project management tools are also well worth considering, as are continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) tools. The latter helps identify errors earlier in the development process, helping the team avoid creating poor-quality code.
We can’t touch upon tools without mentioning security. After all, fixing vulnerabilities is one of the biggest bottlenecks in software releases.
Technical improvements in this sector should include container scanning, license compliance, static application security testing (SAST), and dynamic application security testing (DAST).
Don’t forget to write comprehensive documentation
This may seem like a tedious and pointless task. The former may be true but the latter definitely isn’t.
Big teams and complex applications absolutely need to document workflows, tools, and branching strategies.
Documentation helps identify processes and highlight decisions for future reference. It’s a potent learning tool, serving as what is often referred to as the ‘single source of truth’. This should be regularly updated and universally available to every contributor to consult.
Many collaborative delivery teams prefer to have them in the form of wikis but, of course, this all depends on your preferences.
Provide fast and constant feedback
Teams should always maintain a culture of continuous improvement and collaboration.
Fast and constant feedback will strengthen this. It’s possible to do it one-on-one, or in a group, to boost team efficiency. Pair programming, in which developers code in tandem, is an example of the former.
The latter is best represented by code reviews. Each should allow collaborative delivery teams to detect issues, list necessary changes, and find alternative solutions to complex problems.
Effectively leading collaborative delivery teams
There is one piece of the puzzle that can make or break all of the above strategies. Yes, we’re talking about leadership.
You can’t implement any sort of innovation into your product delivery without a strong vision. This, however, doesn’t mean ruling with an iron fist. Quite the contrary. When it comes to collaborative delivery teams, it’s best to encourage a blameless environment.
Let them fail without fear, explore, experiment, and find creative solutions together. Gently model the desired behavior for a general decrease of friction in the workflow.
Why do it?
What is the purpose of all this? If we go back to basics, we have to admit that the goal of any software is for people to use it.
That’s what all high-performing collaborative delivery teams want to achieve.
Now, you have a product manager, a designer, a developer, a quality assurance professional, someone in charge of DevOps, and maybe a software architect. How do you get them to play together and deliver a stellar product?
Breaking down the barriers between siloed individual roles is of paramount importance. Communicate openly, provide fast feedback, and allow team members to experiment.
Of course, selecting the right tools and writing comprehensive documentation for future reference and learning is just as important. Software creation is a process of trial and error.
Any good leader will always implement these best practices to improve collaboration and, ultimately, boost end-user satisfaction.