Tech stack strategies for digital transformation

A quick refresh

Recently, we started a mini-series on digital transformation, identifying seven major parts of digital transformation:

• Data and analytics 
• Customer experience
• Innovation
• Tech Stack
• Upgraded systems/processes
• Up-skilling and reskilling
• Leadership and culture

In this post we’re going to discuss the tech stack. This will also be the shortest post of this series.

What is “the tech stack” and how should you approach it?

When you say “tech stack,” what you mean typically is what technologies an organization uses, or has mastery over. For example, maybe their project management and email is more Google, or more Microsoft, or a different client. That’s part of their “tech stack.” It’s all the elements that combine to allow people to manage projects, code up projects, deliver on-time, deliver under-budget and the like. 

When you are looking at digital transformation, there are a couple of things to keep in mind around the tech stack:

• Do not overwhelm your employees:
  Some companies will buy lots of different flashy technologies because they got sold on them effectively, they heard about them in their industry, they heard about them from colleagues, etc. But, when you have 12-15 different technologies that your company uses, it makes it harder for employees to get their work done -- because there are all these platforms they need to check just to find documents, timelines, sprints, tasks, etc. You want to have the best technology possible, of course, but you also do not want to overwhelm your employees with lots of pings and messages from different platforms all day.
• If you outsource:
  Make sure that the team you outsource to has a good mix of technological knowledge. In this case, we mean that the developers can work in different project management tools, can work in different coding languages, can work on different types of projects, and are experts at some of the basics of The Fourth Industrial Revolution, including cloud, DevOps methodology, machine learning, Internet of Things, and more.

That’s the basic way to approach “tech stack” when thinking about digital transformation. If you are undertaking a digital transformation project with internal employees, don’t buy 200 different tech platforms. It will make things harder for them. And if you outsourcing to find more expertise, make sure the outsourcing partner is comfortable working in different platforms, languages, and tech cornerstones like cloud.

But how do you find software developers who can code well, but also can work in all these ways?

When you outsource software development work to a team of experts, on a team extension model where they blend into your team, then you get experts in everything you need.

We put together a checklist of items to look for when outsourcing software development teams for any project, be it digital transformation or something smaller. Access it below: