Code authorship

Who will write code within the organization? The division of responsibilities between application team developers and central infrastructure developers plays a crucial role in shaping organizational efficiency and innovation. Although application team developers can have varying levels of autonomy and expertise, central infrastructure developers often serve as a resource for specialized skills and standardized practices. Understanding the strengths and challenges of each approach is essential for organizations seeking to optimize their development strategies.

Application team developers

Will the application teams write most or all of the code? For some applications, they might have a strong development skillset and want to be empowered. For other teams, they might rely on a development team external to their team and expect a significant amount of consultation or to fully handoff all development. How you empower or block developers can affect the following issues:

• Speed to market for new and refactored solutions

  • Is your company and the solutions that they rely on cutting-edge technology or well-know standards?

• Competitive nature of the business or team

  • Does your company success rely heavily on being early to market?

• Developer satisfaction

  • What type of employee will be satisfied using the solution you build?

• Employee attrition

  • The more difficult a solution is to learn and use, the more likely developers will go elsewhere.

• Company culture

  • Will the solution that you deliver align with how your company is accustomed to operating?

Central infrastructure developers

Some organizations or teams depend on an existing central infrastructure or a mainframe team for application infrastructure development. This is useful for consolidating the infrastructure skill sets required into a single team, easing the process of development and troubleshooting.

The challenges that can arrive with this approach are time commitments and requirement changes. When application teams are dependent on a central team, requirement accuracy must be higher and requirement gathering must follow a clearer and organized mechanism.

Consider the following points:

• How will your organization or team prevent requirement drift?

• What standards and communication tools are in place to facilitate this process?

• How does your organization or team standardize service level agreements (SLAs) for requirement changes?

Having a central development team can also be beneficial when using a central repository, as discussed in Shared repositories and contributions.