Live Software Modernization Time Market

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Hello and welcome to Meric Studio's live session,

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Software Modernization Time to Market.

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I'm Alexandra,

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senior content marketing specialist at Meric Studio,

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and I will be your host today.

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Joining me are two very special and very knowledgeable

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guests, Andrey Puska, our software architect,

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and Matty Szeretski, our project manager.

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Hi, guys. How are you?

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Hello. I'm fine. Doing good.

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Okay, I'm really excited to have you here today.

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So as the title of the session suggests today,

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we'll be talking about optimizing the process of

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releasing new features.

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In more detail,

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we are going to cover things like the importance of

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optimizing time to market for mature organizations,

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symptoms indicating that you are going either too fast or

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too slow with releases,

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as well as the ways in which you can improve time to market

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for healthy business growth.

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And before I ask my guests to introduce themselves,

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let me do a short housekeeping.

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So today's session is going to last about an hour,

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and it will be divided into two parts.

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First, we will have the expert discussion and then the Q and A session.

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If you come up with any questions whatsoever,

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please leave them in the chat box and we will address them

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after the discussion.

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It's a live stream, but it's being recorded,

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so you will be able to rewatch it later on.

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Okay, I think it's time for our

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guests to tell us a few words about who they are and what they do,

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as well as about their experience with software modernisation.

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Andrew, could you begin and tell us a few words about yourself?

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Hi. My name is Andrew.

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I'm a software architect at American Studio.

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I started working with American Studio around two years ago,

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firstly as a DevOps.

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Then last year I switched to software architecture.

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Before that I worked in a subscription and pay per view

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business as a backend and tech lead.

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And overall, I'm a fan of cloud solutions and I kind of

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try to push people past their code.

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Okay. Thank you very much. Mate, how about you?

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Hey.

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I'm project manager and scrum master at Marik Studio.

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I have nine years of experience in software

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development, including such industries like medical

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and pharmacy, video gaming, gambling, and sports betting.

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Okay. Thank you very much for the intros.

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I'm really excited to have you both here and to have two quite different,

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but I believe complementary perspectives that you will bring today.

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Okay. Shall we begin? Are you ready?

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I hope so.

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Okay. So let's roll.

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I'd like us to start with something that I believe all of

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us want to achieve with success.

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So in software, success depends on many factors,

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on the level of innovation that the digital product brings to

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the market, on the product market fit,

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on cost of development.

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And I believe I could go on forever, literally.

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So my question for the beginning of this session to

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you is: what is the role of time to market in software success?

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How would you describe it?

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Time to market is

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the length in time where we are

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able to deliver some incremental new features,

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new products to our end users.

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And it's very important because

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in software development,

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our goals are to bring some new value to to

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our users.

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Yeah.

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Not only not only just value for users,

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but it also means that if we if we bring this value to users,

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we we directly connect to a bigger revenue for the company.

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So having a short time to market as possible is crucial

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for companies.

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Yeah.

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Definitely, Angie, you are a bit more direct

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regarding the reasons.

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I tried to be a bit more idle

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dreaming person.

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Let's call it this way.

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Okay.

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And I'm wondering, would you say that time to market is more

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important in some industry than others?

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So suppose you want to start your business or you're already

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operating in a certain industry, on a certain market,

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when should you make time to market your top priority?

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I believe that time to market is

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very, very important for the new markets,

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new industries.

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Also, if we are operating regarding

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the seasons, some events where we are where we

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have quite

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strict deadline to to

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introduce new products and or a new a new feature.

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Andrew, do you have anything to add regarding the industries in

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which time to market is especially important?

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Yeah. Exactly.

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On the on the especially on, like, on seasonal

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or brands, when we are talking about tourism,

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for example, or sports events that only happen,

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for example, during the summer

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or when we have touring for winter for skiing or something

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like that, then we cannot really move the deadline.

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Cannot control the weather or month that we are in.

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So it's crucial

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to produce value for our customers before that happens

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or to be kind of on the market when the time comes.

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Okay.

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So the industries in which you just cannot exceed the deadline

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no matter what happens.

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Okay. I see.

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And Yeah. Come on?

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It's hard to imagine a situation that we are

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preparing a new application for upcoming

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football season, for example.

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And we are calling to the league management.

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Hey, guys.

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Could you postpone your your league start for a week?

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Because we are almost ready.

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Yeah. Like Super Bowl. Sorry.

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Let's postpone it until the next month.

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Yeah. Our ad is almost almost perfect.

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Okay. I see.

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And how about the phases of product development?

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Because so far I have the feeling that we've been mixing it.

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And I'm wondering,

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is time to market perhaps more important for younger businesses,

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maybe for scale ups or maybe for mature organisations and enterprises?

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Is there any simple way to address this question?

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What do you think?

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It really depends.

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For startups, it's obviously

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very important because it determines if the company will

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even have success.

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If you miss your time to market or if

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you deliver something that is already not unique because

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somebody else beat you up to it,

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then it might be as simple as just closing the business.

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On the other hand, you have big companies,

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big enterprises that they have obviously more resources,

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but it it also can can result, you know,

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if you if you miss your time.

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It's gonna result in in in big loss revenue, for example,

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or shutting down departments and and people

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losing their jobs.

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So so both both situations are pretty

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important when it comes to time to market.

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It really depends.

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Yeah. I would like to focus on enterprises.

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So even if we are leader,

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the main competitor on the market, and

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since some moment, we are always second

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thought with new features, then we definitely

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won't be at the top after a while.

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Because it's very important to to give

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some innovation to to the market, to to the audience.

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So keep this competitive advantage even if you are a

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mature organization or especially if you are a mature organization.

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Okay.

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We need to try to stabilize

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to to to keep this this position of the leader

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of the market and being

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fast with with new products,

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new features is one of those ways.

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Okay.

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I'm glad that you actually mentioned enterprises because

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that's what I'd like to focus on from now on.

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Because after all, the main topic is software modernization.

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And Andrew, you actually said it depends.

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And that's one of my favorite phrases in IT.

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And now I'd like to ask you a question to which I suppose the

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answer will be it depends.

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But my question is, is there any optimal value of time to

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market that you should strive for as a mature organization?

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Is there any value like that?

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Or maybe you should rely on a gut feeling to say what

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the optimal time to market is?

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Yeah, I mean, of course, it depends. Right?

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But to to give maybe an example,

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there might be a situation when when the the feature that that

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your your team is developing is considered unique on the market.

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And then having this delivered still as a

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unique functionality is crucial because it keeps your

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customers interested your company, for example,

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or it can expand your customer amount or number.

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If you miss this mark,

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if there is a competitor of yours that will deliver this

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functionality sooner,

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you're kind of out of luck,

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then you need to figure out something else and waste

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resources on something else as well.

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Not necessarily as well, but kind of commit to to new features.

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Yes.

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But from another hand, we cannot go too

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fast to the market because if if our product

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is not polished enough, if it's not

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ready, we have still some gaps in

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functionalities and so on.

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We will also lose.

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Well, it's not so important that we were first,

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but we we made a bad first impression.

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That's also not a good approach.

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And it's a specific specifically true for

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enterprises because for startups,

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you know, you you don't have yet this this point of view of people

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seeing you as as a quality enterprise, for example.

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If if you're a big company,

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there are already some expectations towards you.

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So so it cannot be that you are developing just some

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kind of proof of concept on a real stable market.

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Yes, totally agree.

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Okay, so striving for balance would be the

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answer to this question.

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Okay.

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But unfortunately, that's not always the case, right?

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Because we wouldn't be here today if everybody

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were able to find this golden mean the optimal time to market.

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So speaking from your own experience,

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what's the problem that, you know,

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enterprise clients face more often?

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Going too fast or too slow with releases?

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I would say definitely it will be too too too slow.

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Usually, we we have to deal with many stakeholders,

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many involved people departments,

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many voices, many expectations.

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So so that I would say even conception

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process takes

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a lot longer than in in some smaller

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companies like start ups and so on.

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We we have to get approval from many, many people.

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It takes time.

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So I'm wondering,

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are you able to actually point out to some symptoms that

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show that you are going too slow and that your time to

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market is too slow when you're a mature organisation?

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You already said that there are too many stakeholders.

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What other symptoms would you name to help our audience

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realize that actually something is wrong with their time to market.

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Andre, do you have any hints?

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I mean, one of the examples is in enterprises,

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it's usually very common to have

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kind of bad feedback loop or even an existing feedback loop

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to direct customers.

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And that means when we combine this with multiple stakeholders,

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the idea phase of the of the project may take a long of

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time a lot of time.

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And we're not even sure if if this

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is kind of the feature that we that that

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will be used by by our customers,

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and they will be satisfied by it.

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And all of that brings like,

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the longer it goes, the more questions people have,

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even inside the team.

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So so also kind of one of the symptom is that that people can

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get kind of fed up inside the team and look for maybe other

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alternatives because the project is going, for example,

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for a year or two without any feedback if this is even going

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in the right direction.

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So they cannot really see any progress.

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And I suppose that can be really discouraging to people

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on the project team.

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Yeah. That's correct.

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Most of the people in IT wants

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to see their

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outcomes of their work.

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And if we are working, as Andre mentioned,

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on some feature for for a whole year and we cannot

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see it working on a production,

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cannot get some feedback from from users,

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it might be very frustrating.

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So there is no tangible progress.

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Nothing to be proud of, actually.

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That's correct.

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Okay. So we have the symptoms.

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How about the reasons?

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Because something must trigger this kind of situation.

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I suppose that you could group these according to

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what part of the organisation they are tied to.

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So maybe let's start with the processes and organisational aspects.

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Matti, I'm sure that you have plenty to say about this issue.

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When we think about enterprises,

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we often think about the

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structure that works in waterfall.

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So first we we need to design

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our our feature, our product.

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Then we have to focus on development.

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Then it's testing phase.

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And after after we accomplish all our

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checkpoints on the list, then we can release.

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It all all it's it often takes much time.

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Also, sometimes it's even before the design,

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a lot of r and d work and so on.

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So so even when I'm speaking,

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we can imagine how long it it might take.

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Okay.

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And how about the vision that lies within this enterprise company?

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Can it also be the reason for the prolonged time to market?

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Maybe lack of coherent vision?

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Yeah, for sure.

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And it affects not only just the length of the project,

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but the team as well.

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Thing that we talked just before about team members being

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kind of frustrated

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if on the top level or kind of on the higher

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level of organization,

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there is no unified vision of the of the feature or the

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project, then then also on the lower lower level,

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there are questions and doubts of of how it's gonna work.

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And and all of it just delays the time to market and delivery of the product.

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And speaking of the team,

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I'm wondering how about the development practices?

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Do they also influence time to market?

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And can they also be the reason for the delays?

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Yes, of course.

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There is this big thing called legacy code.

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When we talk about enterprises, we cannot miss legacy code.

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There's always a company that has some kind of software

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already in place.

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When we or the companies, when they develop new features,

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it often comes with some technological depth that they

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need to overcome in order to release new features.

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Now you can you can talk about, you know,

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some hidden dependencies or or some areas that were neglected

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when it comes to tests or or just pure functionalities that

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were just overlooked.

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Okay.

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We have when when we have a a