Sql a practical introduction

October 6, 2011

CIO Perspectives On App Dev: We
Need New Approaches To Deliver
Applications Faster
by Mike Gualtieri
for Application Development & Delivery Professionals

Making Leaders Successful Every Day

For Application Development & Delivery Professionals

October 6, 2011
CIO Perspectives On App Dev: We Need New
Approaches To Deliver Applications Faster
by Mike Gualtieri
with Mike Gilpin and Adam Knoll

EX ECU TIV E S U M MARY
Many CIOs are on the hot seat to innovate by delivering increasingly critical applications more quickly.
To keep up with the accelerated pace of business, CIOs and application development and delivery
leaders must re-evaluate how they develop and deliver applications. Forrester interviewed 15 CIOs
to learn how they are coping with this challenge. Successful CIOs advise moving beyond being just
an order taker by pragmatically eliminating complexity, introducing Agile where appropriate, and
anticipating critical business needs.

TABL E O F CO N TE N TS N OT E S & RE S OU RCE S
2 Demand Exceeds Capacity Forrester interviewed 15 North American and
Faster Business Change Demands Faster Western European CIOs and IT leaders.
Application Delivery
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8 Supplemental Material

© 2011 Forrester Research, Inc. All rights reserved. Forrester, Forrester Wave, RoleView, Technographics, TechRankings, and Total Economic
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forrester.com. For additional reproduction and usage information, see Forrester’s Citation Policy located at www.forrester.com. Information is
based on best available resources. Opinions reﬂect judgment at the time and are subject to change.

2 CIO Perspectives On App Dev: We Need New Approaches To Deliver Applications Faster

DEMAND EXCEEDS CAPACITY
Demand exceeds capacity. This is a common sentiment we hear from CIOs all the time. Why?
Because our time-tested ways of delivering IT solutions are no longer fast enough to satisfy business
leaders and the customers they serve. The breaking point has been a long time coming. In the
1990s, globalization drove new competition and faster business cycles. The movement of businesses
and business functions to the Internet during the late 1990s pressed on the accelerator of business
change. Now, continuous uncertainty marked by the Great Recession has prompted many firms to
transform their mission, structure, and operations. Businesses face two types of change:

· Deep transformational change. Many firms are experiencing fundamental change in their
market or regulatory environment. To survive and thrive, many firms must re-engineer their
business models, business structures, and business processes. Deep transformational change
remakes companies.

· The unrelenting fine-tuning of business processes and customer channels. And then there is
the day job: incorporating small and large changes into the applications used to run the business
and interact with customers. Each of these changes tends to be small, but in the course of a
month or a quarter, they can add up to many IT delivery projects.

Faster Business Change Demands Faster Application Delivery
The velocity of change must increase to keep pace with competitors, pounce on new market
opportunities, and especially meet the increasingly fickle desires and expectations of customers. To
keep pace, CIOs must find ways of developing and delivering applications faster.

To gain insight into how IT organizations are coping with faster change, Forrester interviewed CIOs,
asking these three research questions: 1) How well are enterprise IT organizations keeping up with
the needs of the business? 2) What are the top obstacles faced by IT organizations in developing,
delivering, and changing applications faster? 3) How should IT organizations respond to the need
for faster, continuous change?

October 6, 2011 © 2011, Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited

CIO Perspectives On App Dev: We Need New Approaches To Deliver Applications Faster 3

CIOS THINK APPLICATION DEVELOPMENT IS TOO SLOW AND INEFFECTIVE
To find out just how much pressure CIOs feel to develop and change applications faster, we asked
them to rate themselves on how quickly they can develop new applications and change existing
applications. To gain deeper insight, we also asked them to predict how their business clients would
rate them as well (see Figure 1 and see Figure 2).

Figure 1 New App Development: CIOs Don’t Think Their Business Partners Appreciate Their Eﬀorts

“How well does your organization develop new applications needed by the business on a timely basis?”

“How do you rate your IT organization?” “How do you think your business partners would
rate your IT organization?”
Needs Excellent
improvement (A)
(D) 1
Often good 3
Often good
(B) (B)
6 3 Needs
improvement
(D)
7

Sometimes Sometimes is
is good good
(C) (C)
6 4

Base: 15 North American and Western European CIO and IT leaders

Source: A commissioned phone interview with global CIOs conducted by Forrester on behalf of Compuware,
June 2011
60896 Source: Forrester Research, Inc.

© 2011, Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited October 6, 2011


Figure 2 Changes To Existing Applications: Most Not Meeting Business Expectations

“How well does your IT organization change applications needed by the business on a timely basis?”

“How do you rate your IT organization?” “How do you think your business partners would
rate your IT organization?”
Excellent Needs
(A) improvement Excellent
1 (D) (A)
1 Needs
2 improvement
(D)
Often good 4
(B)
4
Sometimes
is good
(C)
4
Often good
(B)
8 Sometimes is good
(C)
6


June 2011

New Application Development: Not An A-Student In The Bunch
When asked how well their organization develops new applications on a timely basis:

· CIOs think they are doing a pretty good job. Twelve out of the 15 CIOs we interviewed gave
themselves B’s and C’s. None of the CIOs we interviewed gave themselves an A. Three gave
themselves a D.

· CIOs don’t think their business partners fully appreciate their efforts. Unfortunately,
seven CIOs think their business partners would give them a D. In contrast to their rating of
themselves, CIOs believe that their business partners would rate them much lower for new
application development. This represents a big gap between how CIOs think they are actually
doing and how they imagine they are perceived by the business.

Changes To Existing Applications: Most Not Meeting Business Expectations
When asked how well their organization changes applications on a timely basis:



· Only one CIO said that his organization was excellent at application changes. Eight CIOs of the
15 we interviewed gave themselves a B, and one scored an A. Most CIOs felt that they were often
good or even excellent at making changes to applications.

· Business partners give them heat. Only four CIOs thought that their business partners would
give them a B. Six said that their business partners would give them a C.

CIOS MUST ALSO DELIVER APPLICATIONS THAT SATISFY USERS
Business needs trigger the demand to develop and change applications. But employees and/or
customers use those applications directly or indirectly. To be successful in application development,
CIOs must also satisfy these users. We asked CIOs how they thought users would rate both legacy
and newly developed applications (see Figure 3): 1) None of the CIOs said that users were very
satisfied with legacy applications, and 2) four CIOs said that users were very satisfied with newly
created applications.

Figure 3 User Satisfaction Of Newly Developed Apps Improves Significantly Over Legacy Apps

“When thinking about the user interface to the applications your IT organization develops,
how would you rate the user experience?”

“How do you rate the user experience “How do you rate the user experience
of legacy applications?” of newly developed applications?”

Users are
Users Users are dissatisfied
are satisfied very dissatisfied Users are 2
3 4 very satisfied
4

Users are
neutral
3

Users are
neutral
4
Users are Users are satisfied
dissatisfied 6
4


June 2011



CIOS SEE APPLICATION DEVELOPMENT FACING SEVERAL OBSTACLES
The enterprises in our study all face five major barriers to change in their organizations; and in fact,
their survival is often in play.

· Demand exceeding capacity. CIOs report that they simply don’t have the staff to handle all of
the incoming requests from the business. Firms are extra cautious about their budgets and are
reluctant to hire the way they used to, just in case the economy worsens.

“We are a rapidly growing organization with a huge number of priorities. IT works best when
business has a high number of priorities, but when the demand is too high and the business
cannot prioritize, then we have a problem.” (IT director at a UK-based insurance company)

· Skills shortage. Even in the aftermath of the Great Recession, CIOs find it challenging to find
talented people to fill key positions. Technology is changing rapidly and so are the expectations
of the application user interface. Smartphone and tablet application development skills are hot.

· Complexity of legacy. Most CIOs we interviewed have hundreds of applications in their portfolio.
No application is an island. The applications are interconnected to provide the business capabilities
needed. When the business requests a new capability, it often involves multiple applications,
complicating the overall effort to deliver.

· Fuzzy business requirements. The age-old problem of getting solid requirements is still a
challenge, amplified by the urgency of business change. The business needs capabilities faster,
and that means teams must flesh out the real requirements much sooner because there is less
time for rework.

· Complexity of platforms. Most large firms have a plethora of technology platforms and tools.
This complicates application development because of skills and knowledge of legacy code.

“We have too many platforms (.NET, SharePoint, Java, PeopleSoft, and Siebel). These core
systems have to integrate. We also have differences in methodology within the individuals in
the team. Some teams use Agile; some use Waterfall.” (CIO at a UK human resources [HR] and
recruitment organization)

CIOS ADVISE: BE PRAGMATIC, DO AGILE, AND ELIMINATE COMPLEXITY AND REDUNDANCY
Forrester asked the CIOs to provide words of wisdom for other IT organizations to develop and
change applications faster. They said:

“Understand your road map early on as well as your budget. Consolidate as much as possible
because it’s all about your reaction time to business requests. Consolidation helps reduce
that reaction time.” (Senior vice president for application development at a North American
recruitment company)



“Find a pragmatic solution as quickly as possible. I always end up delivering most things
twice. Invest a lot of time and effort in the end-to-end software development process. Make
sure it is well documented. Speed time from business idea to implementation. And most
important, if your team is not big enough or lacks the right skills, then use co-source
suppliers. For example, find a vendor which is a testing specialist that can give you a
methodology to follow.” (IT director at a UK-based insurance company)

“Minimize development environments. Have real true architecture as the core of the
decision-making process, and pick one integration framework that will solve a lot of
problems.” (CIO at a UK HR and recruitment organization)

“Before you can talk about faster application change, you have to build a trusted relationship
with the business. Focus on the technologies that really matter to your business. We have
created a true supply and demand organization.” (Director of application development at a
US-based manufacturing company)

“These are lessons learned in my 10 years. Look at off-the-shelf and cloud solutions for
commodity-based needs. Only invest in differentiation that helps the company achieve
its strategy. Keep MOOSE [the cost to maintain and operate the IT organization, systems,
and equipment] costs as low as possible. Invest in R&D [research and development] to
understand how you can change legacy applications to improve. And finally, continue
to invest in training to keep your talent up to date and interested. Keep talent fresh.”
(President of technology and CIO at a media firm)

“Introducing Scrum made a big difference to our organization. It not only increased
speed but also helped make the team more consolidated. Make sure that you are entirely
comfortable with the development framework and environment.” (CIO at a Netherlands-
based technology services organization)

R E C O M M E N D AT I O N S

TO GET FASTER, MOVE BEYOND JUST BEING AN ORDER TAKER
The pace of everything has accelerated. Customers want faster service. Users want better user
experiences. And the business needs applications faster to satisfy customers, beat competitors,
and drive productivity to boost proﬁts. The CIO is the linchpin and knows it. Leading CIOs are
changing the way IT does business to get faster by:

· Anticipating business needs. Understanding the requirements and scope of a business
need has always been a key challenge to getting applications developed faster. IT cannot
rely on the business to convey the requirements perfectly. IT organizations must get into the
business to understand. They must anticipate the requirements before the business needs
them to get a head start.



· Finding better tools and technology to develop applications faster. Traditional
application development platforms such as Java and .NET are not necessarily the fastest
approaches to develop applications. CIOs should investigate application development
productivity platforms that make application development professionals more productive.
· Elevating user experience design in applications. User satisfaction is increasingly
important. Customers and employees have increased expectations about application user
experience because of the applications they use in their personal lives, such as iPhone apps
and social web applications.

W H AT I T M E A N S

APPLICATION DELIVERY IS NOT CHANGING FAST ENOUGH
CIOs and application delivery leaders clearly understand that they must develop and deliver
applications faster. But they are so loaded down with existing projects that they are not changing
their organization fast enough to speed up the most time-consuming aspects of custom
application development.

CIOs and application delivery leaders face signiﬁcant obstacles in getting faster and closing
the gap between application delivery and business expectations. Leaders who harness this
expectation gap to build support for the diﬃcult steps required to overcome these obstacles will
outpace their competition in using software to drive more customer value.

SUPPLEMENTAL MATERIAL
Methodology
In this study, Forrester interviewed 15 North American and Western European CIOs and IT leaders
to evaluate how their companies deal with business changes. The study began in May 2011 and was
completed in June 2011.


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