Delivery Modernization: A Comprehensive Approach to Building Quality, Cost-Efficient, and Sustainable Software

“Improving anything outside the bottleneck is an illusion”. This popular saying highlights a key idea in process optimization: focusing on areas that don’t limit overall performance won’t bring significant benefits.

In software development, this means taking a holistic approach that considers every part of the delivery process as the most effective way to achieve real, long-lasting improvements. By integrating Sustainability, FinOps, and DevSecOps practices, you can achieve true "Delivery Excellence", where efficiency, cost reduction, and software quality are optimized together, eliminating bottlenecks and ensuring a smooth, efficient workflow.

Why It Matters

Think of it like trying to save gas in your car. You could change the tires, use high-efficiency oil, and make sure everything’s in top shape. But these tweaks won’t make much difference if you don’t consider the bigger picture, like how you drive or the routes you take. Similarly, in software development, “Delivery Excellence” is about optimizing costs by applying the best practices from each area.

In the IT world, today, every organization focuses on three main goals:

• Sustainable Speed
  • Delivering value quickly, predictably, and in a way that lasts is now crucial for success. Getting error-free features to users as fast as possible can set you apart from competitors.
• Cost Optimization
  • In an increasingly competitive industry, keeping a close eye on the costs of cloud services, infrastructure, and operations is essential.
• Sustainability
  • Environmental trends and regulatory pressures mean that sustainability is becoming more important for organizations. Incorporating sustainable practices into application development will soon be vital.

For this reason, it’s not enough to make isolated improvements. It's crucial to take a holistic approach that combines sustainability, cost optimization, and operational efficiency to create a workflow that aligns with business goals and drives profitability.

Digging Deeper

Over the past few years, numerous studies have shown that using best practices in solution development can significantly speed up delivery and cut costs.

This holistic approach can be summed up by uniting three key areas:

• DevSecOps: Integrating security practices into every stage of the software development lifecycle, encouraging collaboration between development, operations, and security teams to continuously and efficiently create more secure applications.
• FinOps: Managing cloud financials by optimizing costs, governance, and the value of cloud services through collaboration between finance, tech, and business teams.
• Planet-Centric: Prioritizing environmental sustainability in the development and use of technology, aiming to minimize ecological impact through responsible and efficient practices.

Delivery Excellence is about finding the right balance and best practices that fit the unique context and goals of each organization.

In this way, different organizations may prioritize these dimensions differently. For instance, some may focus heavily on sustainability as a primary goal, with cost being less of a constraint. Conversely, others might achieve stong sustainability metrics as a byproduct of optimizing application development through best practices.

Adoption in Practice

In reality, this holistic approach involves taking action throughout the entire delivery cycle.

Here’s an example

As we can see, specific actions are taken at each stage to improve each of these areas.

Adopting such an ambitious model can be challenging for any organization, so it’s wise to take small steps and guide the process toward a maturity model. This model might consist of five levels, ranging from "initial" to becoming industry leaders.

A possible breakdown could be:

• 01 Crawl
  • Ad hoc application, lack of standardized processes.
• 02 Walk
  • Defined management processes
  • Use of basic tools
  • Initial visibility and tracking.
• 03 Run
  • Automated CI pipelines
  • Security testing
  • Awareness of costs, and eco-friendly practices
• 04 Fly
  • Continuous optimization
  • Automation of cost management processes
  • Adoption of best practices
  • A company-wide FinOps culture
• 05 Leadership
  • Ongoing innovation and improvement
  • Leadership in delivery practices
  • Maximum profitability and sustainability

The initial levels focus more on tactical approaches, such as implementing basic practices and tools to create a foundation for growth. The later levels shift toward more strategic or even transformative efforts, aiming to change processes, methodologies, and even organizational departments to adopt best practices.

However, it’s crucial to remember that the organization’s context is key to making these changes. Culture and commitment are the foundation of this pyramid; without them, effective change won’t be possible.

In Conclusion

Delivery Excellence is a comprehensive approach that brings together the best practices from DevOps, QA, Finance, and Sustainability to ensure high-quality, efficient, and sustainable software delivery while reducing costs.

Throughout this article, we’ve explored how adopting a holistic view that addresses every aspect of the delivery process can radically transform how technology solutions are developed and delivered. Just like in the car analogy, where optimizing only one part isn’t enough to save gas, in software development, it’s essential to integrate these practices collectively to avoid bottlenecks and achieve true efficiency. Gradually implementing these practices through a maturity model allows organizations to progress in a controlled and sustainable way toward achieving excellence in software delivery. This approach not only improves processes and reduces costs, but also contributes to a more sustainable future and positions organizations as leaders in innovative industry practices.