In an era brimming with vague buzzwords and lofty ambitions, companies are striving to devise solutions that not only satisfy but surpass customer expectations and improve the efficiency of operations. With the ever-expanding set of emerging technologies — big data, machine learning (ML), artificial intelligence (AI), next-gen user experiences (UI/UX), edge computing, the Internet-of-things (IoT), microservices, and Web3 — there is a huge surface area to address.

It’s not a surprise then that the discussions in many IT departments center around future-fit software and contemporary application development frameworks. Moreover, there is a special emphasis on the need to understand transformation and modernization within the software development lifecycle and the adoption of modern practices.

Defining Future-Fit Software

Future-fit software brings a customer-centric approach to the foreground, empowering organizations to rapidly modify business structures and capabilities to meet future customer and employee needs with adaptivity, creativity, and resilience.

Swift reconfiguration necessitates a shift in mindset and culture. The outdated belief that significant change is based on a one-time investment of capital, time, and effort needs to be abandoned. For a business to progress towards future readiness and modern application development, it must dispense with this belief and restructure around processes that promote agility and recognize the reality that investment in software will be a continual process.

Future-fit software — whether off-the-shelf or domain-specific and custom built to solve a particular business problem or enable a new workflow — must be considered transformative through evolution rather than with a “big bag” mentality. Software and technology are never “done,” but should be deployed in a way that allows them to grow and flex just as the business does.

The Significance of Application Development for the Business Future

In a nutshell, it is paramount. Today, software embodies the business, and in turn, the business describes the software that supports it. This symbiotic relationship means that altering operational software will modify the business model. And as the business responds to the market, the software will need to follow suit.

As mentioned above, there are also significant and fundamental transformations in the software climate on the horizon, especially in the areas of AI, ML, IoT, User Interface and Experience design, and Web3. This next wave of fundamental shifts will be a forcing factor for many businesses in how they stay relevant with their products, services, and operations.

While numerous companies are still grappling with the aftermath of past technology disruptions, it’s crucial for leadership to transition to modern application development and technology integration sooner rather than later. Competitors will certainly use these emerging technologies and software approaches to their advantage, and so should your business. But first, solid foundations must be laid.

The Harmonious Relationship Between Agile and DevOps

Adopting Agile and DevOps has often posed a challenge. It’s a common misconception that Agile is exclusively for the software group, while DevOps is the responsibility of infrastructure and operations. In reality, Agile and DevOps are two facets of the same principle.

DevOps demands the same mindset, practices, and culture as Agile. An end-to-end transformation with both can dissolve the barrier between business-focused software development and the operations and infrastructure teams that underpin that software. Embracing these twin process domains is a foundational prerequisite to achieving any success in creating future-fit platforms.

Agile imparts the exhilarating experience of steering a high-quality, speedy vehicle. DevOps, on the other hand, provides the necessary infrastructure in a scalable and automated way to ensure fast, secure, and resilient operations and keep customers from encountering poor performance or unreliability.

A critical component of the interplay between agile software development teams and DevOps, including security teams and compliance, is managing the release cycles between all groups. This goes beyond traditional PMO functions, and in complex scenarios requires a dedicated individual or team to manage the intricacies of deploying new functionality to production and accounting for all of the downstream effects on customers, operations, data, reporting, etc.

The Path Towards Modern Application Development

There is no one-size-fits-all path forward, as it will depend on a company’s current status regarding its people, processes, and technology. However, certain principles apply universally:

• Enhancing the connection between IT, business, infrastructure, and operations is vital to fully leverage new technologies.
• Initiate with small-scale projects and minimal investment, then scale as you grow. Avoid integration of a buzzword technology (AI, ML, big data, IoT, microservices, etc) unless you fully understand the implications and the business case you’re solving for. At Tandem we prefer to focus on simpler and proven technologies first and then move toward next-gen technologies as they mature.
• While grassroots-level initiatives can kick-start the process, sweeping success can only be achieved with executive-level support. This is an often overlooked but critical element to success in adopting new technologies and software approaches.
• Recognize that change can often be met with resistance, especially from managers tasked with implementing new procedures. Even with executive support, this can create bottlenecks.
• Clearing these bottlenecks requires effective communication. Understanding that each stakeholder group has unique objectives and concerns is crucial, and communication strategies should be tailored accordingly.
• Celebrate successes and maintain frequent communication.
• Plan for the long term by thinking in layers: weeks/sprints, quarters, years. But be willing to adjust when too much emphasis is placed on short vs. long-term planning and objectives — maintain balance across the field of view.

Additionally, organizations that collaborate with an external partner for new technology implementation tend to stay ahead of the curve compared to those that don’t. Choose your partners wisely and engage them at the ideal time in any new effort. This is usually just beyond the concept phase but before significant effort has gone into detailed planning.

A Case Study in Building Future-Fit Software

San Diego Gas and Electric (SDG&E), a subsidiary of Sempra Energy, is a regulated public utility provider that serves 3.7 million homes and businesses in San Diego and southern Orange county. After the 2018 fire season, the California Public Utility Commission and Office of Emergency Services imposed new regulations to reduce future fire risk, including more robust guidelines around customer notification and post-event reporting.

Ultimately, SDG&E’s manual reporting systems were no longer going to be feasible to meet their community’s needs. They engaged Tandem to extend their existing mass-notification system by better integrating it with other legacy systems and creating a long-term roadmap for process improvements that enabled the product to flex with future changes in their internal infrastructure, grid equipment, and regulatory changes – making the back-end systems future-fit for years to come.

Tandem used a purpose built design system to create an intuitive user experience and information radiator for their emergency operations center, another future-fit component that allows rapid changes to the UI/UX. This upgrade minimized confusion and complexity. Employees can now see critical facilities and communities affected by outages at a glance and onboard new employees faster. We also simplified the notification and reporting process from 37 steps to 10, enabling the SDG&E team to inform their most at-risk customers when minutes matter.

Our team created a custom deployment process for SDG&E that was fully tailored to their system and configurations, and integrated to work with eight existing critical applications within their organization. These integrations use an architecture that allows SDG&E to continue to expand their software, making it flexible enough to fit all of their needs and enable them to stay agile.

Most importantly, the refreshed application means SDG&E has been able to adapt quickly to the latest reporting regulations, leading to them facing far fewer fines — in 2022, their closest competitor was charged 417 times the fine amounts.

In conclusion, modern application development and future-fit technology are driving forces behind successful, resilient businesses. By embracing these advancements, companies can ensure they are well-equipped to meet and exceed the evolving needs of their customers, employees, and industry standards.

Is your software future-fit? Let’s chat about how Made in Tandem can make your product more resilient than ever.