Before implementing a platform engineering program — which includes the standardization and automation of development platforms in an enterprise, among other changes — in your organization, make sure you have the answers to these five questions:
Does Your Organization Have a Clear Vision and Strategy?
All of an organization’s development teams need to be on the same page regarding what their goals are. Platform engineering is about improving DevOps processes so software engineers can be more effective and digital products can be produced faster and with fewer errors. First, it’s important to get an organizationwide vision of where your current processes are falling short and where you want to go.
Does Your Organization Have Solid Cross-functional Collaboration?
Setting up a platform engineering program requires collaboration and buy-in from all of the players involved: engineering, operations, product management and stakeholders in the business. That buy-in ensures that the tools developed in or selected for the program will be able to be satisfy the needs of teams in all of these roles, leaving them the time and energy to work on their specific tasks.
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What Is Your Automation and Standardization Plan?
Automated and standardized development tools are key to a successful platform engineering program. Deciding on this plan early on is key, whether it’s using off-the-shelf software and cloud solutions or developing your own.
Is Your Solution Scalable and Flexible?
If a platform engineering plan is too rigid, it can’t grow with the changing needs of an organization. Incorporating plans to quickly increase hardware capacity to serve the platform, as well as implementing a streamlined change process, will ensure its future use.
Is There Room for Feedback and Iterative Improvement?
The best way to improve a system is to regularly get feedback from its users, so they can give information on pain points, feature suggestions and other insights. Establishing a frictionless way for users of the platform to give regular feedback will help developers make regular improvements.
UP NEXT: What’s the difference between platform engineering and DevOps?
