How to ensure continuity and efficiency in IT development projects: winning strategies

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How the adoption of Mendix can optimize development processes

How to prevent discontinuities in development projects and ensure that the IT team is always able to respond in a timely manner to the changing needs of the business.

In companies, development projects are closely linked to IT strategy because they represent the practical execution of technology directives designed to support business objectives. Those who oversee strategy also have the task of ensuring that development projects proceed smoothly, responding promptly to evolving needs.

However, there are inefficiencies and project constraints that slow innovation and compromise the company's ability to meet customer expectations. Budget and IT shortage at the top of the list: production capacity is tied to resource availability, and we know that all critical project phases (such as scheduling, infrastructure management, security) require skilled IT professionals who demand significant investment and are not always available in the market. The existing IT staff may not be adequate to meet demands within the timeframe desired by the business.

Then there are other aspects that can cause discontinuities in development: running change of requirements, the emergence of unexpected technical problems that require rethinking the architecture, dissimilarities in the code that create malfunctions, but also bugs that emerge because there has been little time for testing.

All these elements, combined with resource shortages, lead to delays and disruptions that make the company less competitive and penalize the achievement of broader strategic goals, such as digital transformation or expansion into new markets.?

Increasing throughput is possible

Low-code technologies are emerging on the market that provide visual, preconfigured tools to simplify application creation. With these, developers can focus on key application components without having to write complex code from scratch, significantly reducing development time.?

In addition, the ease of use allows non-technical figures, such as business analysts and project managers, to contribute to projects, and they can actively participate in development and thus fill the gap of specialized personnel.

?Then there are a whole series of elements that prevent discontinuities in the development cycle:

• ?fast iterations: being able to build prototypes and working applications in a very short time facilitates a rapid feedback loop. An incremental approach can then be applied, improving the ability to adapt to business needs and correct errors before they become costly.
• easier quality standards to ensure: the code generated by low-code platforms is more standardized and modular, which makes maintenance and upgrades easier and less costly than solutions developed entirely in the traditional way.
• component reuse and automation of repetitive processes: the ability to reuse preconfigured components and automate common, repetitive tasks (e.g., integration with other systems, data management) increases efficiency and reduces human error, preventing post-launch failures

?This type of technology speeds up the entire development cycle, improves collaboration between technical and non-technical teams, and reduces the complexities typical of traditional development, thereby increasing the organization's production capacity.

?Concrete examples derived from our experience

Increasing production capacity is linked to simplifying the development cycle, through times and ways that traditional development cannot support except with substantial investment.

At WEGG, we are expert consultants in process design, which we model on technology to make sure it meets the strategic needs of the organization. Our analyses allow us to identify possible inefficiencies, bottlenecks or gaps in advance, reducing the need for costly fixes and late-stage redesign, including on integrations.?

Simplification in development is also supported by process simplification, with application flows that are designed to bring value at each of their stages, reducing the need to revise them at later stages.?

In our scouting of low-code technologies, we identified Siemens' Mendix as the best combination of technical and operational factors that ensure that the platform is robust, secure and capable of supporting complex business applications. In fact, for the seventh consecutive year, Gartner has positioned it among the most advanced low-code tools in his Quadrant.

?Mendix, in addition to offering a visual interface that allows you to build applications in drag-and-drop mode and a very large library of preconfigured components (predefined templates, widgets, connectors, microservices), has advanced built-in collaboration features and automation of different development phases such as iterations, deployment, debugging.

Remaining on the collaboration theme, Mendix succeeds in encouraging the joint work of multiple figures: it offers a centralized repository(Team Server) based on version management that allows simultaneous work without ever losing control over changes. When development is complete, the integration of the different parts of the project into a single final version is done through GTI (Transparent Integration Management), which automates this process, making it transparent and minimizing errors during the merge.?

If you have multiple teams (including business teams) involved and large projects, this ensures a smooth and transparent collaborative development process in any case.

Addressing the most common problems that cause discontinuities in the development cycle, such as a change in requirements while the project is in progress, the ability to quickly create application prototypes averts the need to start from scratch. This allows feedback to be gathered quickly: it only takes a few improvements and refinements to turn it into a production-ready application.?

In fact, the prototype created in Mendix is not just a static model: it can be quickly scaled up and enriched with additional functionality without requiring significant rewriting.

Additionally, all the manual processes that are related to the development cycle, such as deployment, testing and debugging, and workflow creation are integrated and automated: the platform itself detects and corrects errors, deploys applications to public, private, and on-premise clouds, supports agile iteration management, and avoids the need to duplicate development in the case of cross-platform applications.?

With such a solution, which is able to quickly turn prototypes into production-ready solutions and foster close collaboration within technical and non-technical teams, IT is able to evolve in an agile and continuous manner without running the risk of getting “stuck” or delayed by design constraints.?

Would you like to increase efficiency within your development projects? Contact us at [email protected] for a consultation!