‘Do More With Less’ Is Seasoned, Classic and Fraudulent

Budget, time, and resource constraints are top of mind for every organization as the economic downturn continues. The challenge is you cannot do more with less. It just doesn’t work.

With fewer people and resources, it is not a sustainable model over the long-term. From marketing and sales teams to IT and software development, teams today are learning to do less with less. And that’s ok if you are honing in on the right tasks — those best for teams, your customers, and the business that give organizations the best bang for their buck. But, how do leaders determine what those tasks are? Which projects, products, features and services should be made the priorities when you cannot do it all?

As we enter a new year, the sweet spot will be how organizations balance what leadership thinks what products and services should take top priority versus what software development teams want versus what customers say they need. When resources are at a premium, there is no secret to determining what projects and tasks make the list and which get chopped, but there are emerging trends that can help guide these tough decisions.

1. Team-Based Approach With Clear OKRs

The decision to determine which projects and products should get done begins with a software development team-based approach. Because teams are the ones doing the work, they should have the say in which get done by determining which tasks meet the needs of the majority of their users. Which tasks will inspire the majority to stay on the platform and stick with your product? These decisions can no longer be made by a single scrum master or the loudest customers. With limited resources, these decisions should be made as a team, by the team.

But it must also be based on skillsets and interests. What are the strongest skillsets you have available? What does your team want to do? Now is the time to have your team utilize the skill sets they want, increasing chances of retaining them. If there is a developer who has always wanted to be a junior scrum master and is willing to spend nights learning, cultivate that. Match your projects with your best skill sets.

Roles and responsibilities should be clearly defined so that you can set the right expectation. After prioritizing the resources you have, rally the resources and set expectations for both management and customers. Team-based OKRs will become even more important with fewer resources.

Related Article: Growing Beyond Agile: Adaptability for Today’s Marketing Landscape

2. Consolidating Your Toolset

Five years ago, if software developers could not find the tool they needed on an open source project, he or she would go build it. Today, building a tool is feasible but maintaining it is another story. As a team, determine which tools will make you more efficient and use them to collaborate.

While collaboration is a tired and beaten-up word, with limited resources, it’s more important than ever. Now is the time to be collaborating on what you truly need to be focused on and building. When you collaborate more efficiently, you can share work and others can reuse work you have already done. You may not be able to do more with less, but you can do less with less more efficiently if you better collaborate using the same tools.

3. Greater Investment in Open-Source Tools for Teams

With the consolidation of tools, there will be a greater investment in open source projects by teams. Teach others how to use various open source tools and how to maintain these tools so they can continue to use these innovations. This is a more thorough approach to project management and the development cycles. Throwing away code is going to be less amenable to teams. What can you do that is most effective, most scalable, and the most transferable for your team?

Invest in the investments you have already made. For example, as Microsoft doubles down on some of its open source projects, its tools are already integrated. Finding those solutions that allow you to scale quickly without disrupting the business are going to be the most helpful. By doing that, you already have champions inside the business.