Leadership Vision for 2022

Top 3 Strategic
Priorities for
Software
Engineering
Leaders
 Leadership Vision for 2022: Top 3 Strategic Priorities for Software Engineering Leaders

From Chris Howard, Chief of Research, Gartner

As we head into 2022, we continue to feel the human toll of the global
You and your team may be burning out, and it’s never been
pandemic, but we already know it has been a watershed period in which more important to prioritize your time and energy.
attitudes and norms have permanently shifted — in our everyday lives
and at work.
In your role as a leader, you’ve now spent months adapting to change and
Living through COVID-19 has increased social awareness — as have growing delivering new solutions at speed. You and your team may be burning out,
demands for equity for those who are underrepresented. and it’s never been more important to prioritize your time and energy. To help
Businesses have also changed. For many organizations, the pandemic with that, Gartner Leadership Vision provides top-level guidance to leaders
has catalyzed digital business initiatives as we adapt to the demands and their teams on where to focus — based on our data-driven research.
of employees, customers and other stakeholders, who were forced into We’re providing detailed insights to our clients across dozens of roles, and
new digital options that they have now come to favor. we’re now excited to share excerpts with the business community beyond our
B2B purchasers are happy to buy digitally, without a sales representative; clients. We hope this will help you to focus discussions with your teams, peers
B2C consumers are buying off social media platforms; employees are and other leaders, so you can more quickly and effectively diagnose priorities
physically distributed and communicating asynchronously — and IT and actions, especially as you solidify your strategic plans for 2022.
infrastructures must secure the organization despite this “anytime, anyway,
anywhere” way in which we’re operating.
Chris Howard
Chief of Research, Gartner

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 Leadership Vision for 2022: Top 3 Strategic Priorities for Software Engineering Leaders

Broad Mandate for Software Engineering Leaders

usiness Capab The imperative for software engineering leaders is to build software to
er B ilit
liv ies deliver business capabilities and adapt software to changing business
De needs over time.

Software engineering extends beyond writing code and emphasizes

technical excellence. It factors the platforms to run the software, including
Architectures Platforms automation and low-code development, assembling teams, including
cross-functional teams from across the organization, adopting the right
architectures and designing high-quality experiences, and employing
People, practices that guide you in building high-quality software efficiently.
Culture
and Skills The software engineering leader leads a team of software engineers and
provides guidance in all of these areas. They support the business and
help their team acquire and maintain the necessary skills, while fostering
Practices Teams a culture for success.

Over time, a lack of technical excellence diminishes

Tec ce your ability to deliver business capabilities.
h nical Excellen

Source: Gartner

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 Leadership Vision for 2022: Top 3 Strategic Priorities for Software Engineering Leaders

Application Leaders and Software Engineering Leaders

Deliver Intelligent Composable Applications
The intersection of applications and software engineering

Technology Innovation Business Innovation

Digitally different
Moments Rep-mediated
experiences Application Leader
of nuance digital experiences

Intelligent
Custom Applications Composable Packaged Business Capabilities
Applications

Software Engineering Leader

Source: Gartner

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 Leadership Vision for 2022: Top 3 Strategic Priorities for Software Engineering Leaders

Three Challenges and Actions for Software

Engineering Leaders
Building and delivering quality Delivering scalable and secure Building, developing and retaining
software at scale digital products high-performing teams

47% of software engineering leaders say Application programming interfaces (APIs) High-performing teams deliver 53% better
delivering secure software features among open access to data and application functionality outcomes in employee experience and
their performance objectives. to more users and ecosystem partners, but API productivity and 37% better outcomes in
security is a top concern. attracting and retaining external customers.

Actions

Focus on automation across the full delivery life Leverage APIs to provide the ecosystem Adopt cross-functional fusion teams and
cycle and maximize composable architecture. with functionality, but install countermeasures establish a talent development program.
against threats related to app integration.

Source: Gartner 2021 Software Engineering Leaders Survey, Gartner strategic assumptions, 2020 Gartner Software Engineering Team Effectiveness Survey

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 Action to build and deliver quality software at scale Leadership Vision for 2022: Top 3 Strategic Priorities for Software Engineering Leaders

Focus on Automation Across the Full Delivery

Life Cycle and Emphasize Value Streams
Creating frictionless pipelines

Value Version Build Continuous Release Test Continuous Continuous

Streams Control Automation Integration Automation Automation Delivery Monitoring

Continuous Single repository Single-touch Frequent Packaging Unit, integration Every change Products
flow of the with trunk-based build from source mainline and deployment and system reliably and actively
highest quality development integration of applications tests without progressively monitored in
and value with automated across all human releasable at development
• Accelerated test validation environments interaction any time and production
delivery
• Flow
optimization Automation for:
• Waste
minimization • Integration. Robotic process automation
• Application development. CI/CD pipelines
Concept to Cash
• Testing. Test automation
Source: Gartner

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 Action to build and deliver quality software at scale Leadership Vision for 2022: Top 3 Strategic Priorities for Software Engineering Leaders

Emphasize Granularity to Maximize Composability

and Optimize Architecture
Spectrum of options for microservices architecture

Monolith Macroservices Miniservices Microservices

Service

Service

Service

Service
Service Service
Service Service Service Service
Monolith Monolith

Runtime Runtime Runtime Runtime Runtime RT RT RT RT

Data Store Data Store Data Store Data Stores

Greater data integrity, lower architectural complexity

Greater development agility, increased deployment flexibility, more precise scalability

Source: Gartner

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 Action to deliver scalable and secure digital products Leadership Vision for 2022: Top 3 Strategic Priorities for Software Engineering Leaders

Leverage APIs to Provide Ecosystem Access

to Functionality ... API Consumers API Provider

Deliver Manage
Easy and Consistent
Performant,
Consistent for Security
Reliable and
Consumers to and Access
Implemented
Implement Control

Well- Monitoring &

Documented Analysis Ensure
and Easily Customer- Successful Quality &
Understood Centric Adoption Availability
Design

Clear Discoverable
Needed Definitions With
and Relevant in Legal and Transparent
Functionality Technical Versioning &
Contracts Bug Fixes
Design

Source: Gartner

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 Action to deliver scalable and secure digital products Leadership Vision for 2022: Top 3 Strategic Priorities for Software Engineering Leaders

… But Install Countermeasures Against Threats Related

to Application Integration
Identity and Access Control Data Security API Protection

Threats Unauthorized access to SaaS or Data privacy breaches, “Leaky APIs” exposing applications
on-premises applications compliance failures and data

Countermeasures Identity and access management, Data masking, data tokenization, API gateways, web application
RBAC, API management cloud access security brokers firewalls, specialist API
security products

Source: Gartner
Note: RBAC: Role-Based Access Control

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 Action to build, develop and retain high-performing teams Leadership Vision for 2022: Top 3 Strategic Priorities for Software Engineering Leaders

Adopt Cross-Functional Fusion Teams

Functional teams versus cross-functional teams

Functional teams Cross-functional teams

“Orders” “Customers” “Inventory” “Search”

User Experience Service Team Service Team Service Team Service Team

Logic

Data
Business Logic

UX

Ops
Database
Service Service Service Service

Source: Gartner

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 Action to build, develop and retain high-performing teams Leadership Vision for 2022: Top 3 Strategic Priorities for Software Engineering Leaders

Establish a Talent Development Program

IT skills inventory process
Week 1 Duration Week 8

Information
Kickoff Identification Collection Data Analysis Delivery
Gathering

• Validate the scope • Develop questionnaire • Select skill • Provide access • Perform multiple • Provide data to
• Review objectives (survey questions) competencies to to survey data cuts stakeholders
• Identify the • Identify “cuts” of be inventoried • Have participants • Analyze data • Present findings
project team data needed • Identify job families self-assess (using • Summarize findings
• Define key roles of • Gather skills and • Map inventory selected survey tool)
responsibilities competencies participants to • Roll out inventory
information (what job families by job family
is needed now • Have managers validate
and in future) proficiency levels
(recommended)

Communication
• Communicate project • Distribute instructions • Communicate • Communicate results,
to the organization for completing progress and where appropriate
and the objectives inventory “next steps”
• Communicate job
family rollout timetable
Source: Gartner

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 Leadership Vision for 2022: Top 3 Strategic Priorities for Software Engineering Leaders

Action Plan for Software Engineering Leaders in 2022

Build APIs Enable skills Embrace

development fusion teams

Automate across the Optimize architectural Adopt a UX

life cycle granularity mindset

Source: Gartner

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 Leadership Vision for 2022: Top 3 Strategic Priorities for Software Engineering Leaders

Actionable, objective insight

Explore these additional complimentary resources and tools
for software engineering leaders:

Tool Tool eBook Resource Hub

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Learn key strategies to accelerate your Learn about the trending insights and
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 Leadership Vision for 2022: Top 3 Strategic Priorities for Software Engineering Leaders

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