{"id":79206,"date":"2024-04-05T08:23:29","date_gmt":"2024-04-05T08:23:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/expleo.com\/global\/en\/?post_type=insights&p=79206"},"modified":"2024-05-24T12:04:15","modified_gmt":"2024-05-24T12:04:15","slug":"agile-software-delivery-developer-shortage","status":"publish","type":"insights","link":"https:\/\/expleo.com\/global\/en\/insights\/blog\/agile-software-delivery-developer-shortage\/","title":{"rendered":"Embracing Agile Software Delivery to address the Developer Shortage\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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John O\u2019Connell<\/a>, Director of Software Engineering Solutions, <\/span>Expleo<\/span><\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/em><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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In part one of this three-part blog series, I looked at the current state of play in the Generative AI arena, with a particular focus on how AI deployments can improve developer productivity. I also examined the implications of the <\/span><\/span>projected shortage of four million developers by 2025<\/span><\/span><\/a>, otherwise termed the \u2018app gap\u2019.<\/span><\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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The Power of Low-code \/ No-code <\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Among thought leaders and developer productivity experts within the tech community, the use of low-code\/ no-code has been heralded as a silver bullet solution to this talent shortage \u2013 enabling rapid application development without extensive coding knowledge (they can be operated by anyone, apparently). Low-code\/no-code allows users to build applications or automate processes without writing traditional code, using visual interfaces and pre-built components instead. From my correspondence with clients, low-code\/ no-code is very much perceived as a timely solution to some of the most pressing hiring challenges they\u2019re facing.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

Expleo\u2019s Business Transformation Index (BTI) 2023 report<\/span><\/a> provides timely insights into how firms are addressing these challenges. For example, 81% of Irish respondents said organisations need to be more embracing of low-code and no-code approaches to plug skills gaps (compared to 73% of global respondents.) Our research also found that 37% of Irish organisations intend to use low-code\/no-code development platforms to broaden the number of staff involved in developing applications. In tandem with the low-code\/ no-code movement, the AI community has given us chatbots that write code on behalf of developers, thus freeing up their time to do more interesting things.<\/span><\/p>

My opinion on these tech breakthroughs is straightforward \u2013 they\u2019ll make an impact as they mature. However, given the increasingly competitive developer labour market, I think that it\u2019s fair to say that they haven\u2019t fixed the problem yet. And perhaps they never will. At Expleo, we believe that there isn\u2019t always a technology solution for technology problems, Agile ways of working can be an enterprise\u2019s superpower when it comes to tackling implementation challenges and achieving engineering excellence. Let\u2019s look at an example.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Agile Delivery Yields Tangible Gains <\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Expleo worked with a client who was struggling to get an application into production their team of developers had spent 12 months on the project and the app hadn\u2019t launched. An Expleo team of developer productivity experts was tasked with building an app of comparable complexity for a similar user base. Our app went into production four months after the project initiated with our client. Was this because we used AI or no-code technology? We did, but that wasn\u2019t the reason.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

Our client\u2019s dev team had been previously burned by an app that they built and launched into production but was widely roundly rejected by users who preferred to use their own \u2018manual\u2019 process instead. This time around, the dev team were determined not to fall at the same hurdle, so insisted on sign-off from user representatives before release to production. Every time the sign-off was requested by the dev team, the user reps suggested a change, this led to an ongoing cycle of negotiations without a resolution.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

On the other hand, as developer productivity experts, our team couldn\u2019t afford such caution. After three months, we put our ideas into production and then showed the users how we could respond to their change requests relatively quickly as the app was in use. After a month or so, the client began to see the feasibility of this approach. Agile delivery is about small increments and fast feedback loops \u2013 the benefits of which became clear to the client. What looked on the surface like a developer productivity issue was really a problem relating to the fear of change, and the solution was to use an approach that dealt with that. This \u2018AI apprehension\u2019 is quite common, and sometimes it takes a measured, methodical roll-out for clients to get on board.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

At Expleo, we actively promote the use of best-in-class tooling such as AI assistants, no-code platforms and appropriate software frameworks as a way of increasing productivity and setting a new standard for engineering excellence. Based on our real-life experience in the field, we also believe that productivity will be increased by:<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>