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In the excitement of transforming business through technology, it’s easy to fall for the trap of viewing engineering as simply using code to deliver the functionality and experience determined by other parts of the company/organization. If this seems familiar, you may be missing out on the full potential that engaged engineers can help you unlock.
In fact, it makes sense that business owners and other key decision makers want to retain control of the “business” aspect of a project or product. Even different department leads sometimes feel so responsible for their specific role in the development that they inadvertently create silos which hinder the entire development process.
The truth is that programmers and engineers deliver immense value beyond just writing code. If you fail to include them in such a key aspect of development as strategy / R&D, you’re missing out on all that value. Let’s take a look at exactly how you benefit from including your engineering team in the strategy phase of projects.
- Hands-on industry experience: no matter how in touch with the market/user needs your product and/or UX teams are, engineers are the people on your team who have actual hands-on experience from similar projects with similar technical challenges. Not only are they deeply familiar with industry standars and best practices, they also know the quirks of specific technologies, from their unique capabilities to key limitations.
- Secure & future-proof technology stack: thanks to this hands-on experience, the engineering team will be crucial in the selection of the best technologies for your technology stack. This guarantees both security and longevity of the digital product being built, while also facilitating integrations with technologies such as AI as well as giving you more control over any custom integrations.
- Significantly less rework: engineers’ understanding of the capabilities and limitations of specific technologies also significantly reduces the risks of unnecessary rework, scope changes or even strategic pivots. Non-technical employees will often lack this knowledge, resulting in more attempts to reinvent the wheel which could have been avoided by including the engineer perspective early on.
- Smoother communication throughout the project: involving the engineering team from the very beginning of a project also significantly smoothens communication throughout the project’s entire duration. It results in fewer back and forths, allowing engineers to work much more independently without managers and other non-engineers having to get too involved.
- Better stakeholder alignment: by leveraging the engineering team’s technical expertise right from the planning stage, the entire team can more easily and quickly define key goals and challenges, ensuring that all key stakeholders are aligned around the same objectives throughout the duration of the project. Clearly defining responsibilities while sharing accountability and success also helps avoid the risks of communication silos mentioned earlier.
- Deeper alignment with true user and market needs: while departments such as marketing and product development are typically the ones most in touch with the market opportunities and customer needs, these can be better met if the engineering team is also familiarized with them as early as possible. When they are, they can make sure that the technical aspects of the project are also deeply aligned with these market and customer demands.
- Better use of engineers’ time and expertise: since research and development work is such a key part of pretty much every project, it would be a waste not to also leverage the engineering team’s time and expertise in this early stage. By including them in R&D, you guarantee a better return on your investment in engineering, especially considering the productivity gains thanks to AI tools and how AI is impacting the field at large.
Conclusion
As technical needs of businesses grow more complex, engineering is starting to play an increasingly important role in digital product development. Keeping the engineering team away from strategy risks compromising this key role, leading to projects that last longer to complete and are less in tune with the true customer and market needs.
In contrast, including engineering in strategy and other critical business areas helps avoid department silos while also aligning stakeholders around shared objectives and responsibilities. This ensures smoother collaboration throughout the project, resulting in a better time to market and a higher quality of the developed digital product.
