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CIOs eager to enable Digital Transformation across their organizations are often surprised to learn just how much influence their company ’ s developer culture has on the failure or success of those broad initiatives . But as organizational leaders , CIOs also play a key role in creating and nurturing the culture that shapes those outcomes .
A recent report from Harvard Business Review on Maintaining Momentum on Digital Transformation underscores how the quality of the developer experience goes hand-in-hand with Digital Transformation success .
Digital Transformations are particularly challenging because they involve both business evolution and technology evolution in equal measure . They ’ re not fire-and-forget projects ; they require a mindset built on continuous improvement .
To succeed at these mission-critical initiatives , developers must bring an understanding of the broader business objectives as well as technology strategy ( and wise architecture decisions ) as they implement Digital Transformation innovations .
That expertise is naturally found in veteran developer employees who know and are deeply invested in the business . Therefore , developer longevity within an enterprise is an advantage to Digital Transformation journeys , given the institutional knowledge such developers have cultivated over time .
CIOs need to understand that they have the power to make or break the quality of the developer experience within their organizations – their actions as cultural leaders may be the single most crucial factor in retaining and attracting developer talent .
Developers naturally seek new challenges to evolve their skillsets and expand their domain and technical expertise , in order to both remain relevant and command greater career and financial rewards .
If one CIO ’ s organization fails to deliver such opportunities , rest assured that another company will .
CIOs seeking to enable effective on-going Digital Transformation must cultivate a developer experience worthy of the talent they wish to retain . Keeping engineers means keeping them engaged and motivated .
Ravi Lachhman , Field CTO at Shipa . io
Digital Transformations are particularly challenging because they involve both business evolution and technology evolution in equal measure .
CIOs must also be aware that the developer experience they nurture directly impacts the organization ’ s ability to pursue and maintain momentum along their continuous Digital Transformation journeys .
With software engineers serving as the nexus of innovation within so many enterprises , it goes without saying that the developer job market is great for engineers but tough for those trying to hire them .
Given this environment , CIOs must focus on ensuring that veteran developers are motivated , incentivized , provided opportunities for personal growth , and , arguably most important , spared from obnoxious toil .
With such a developer experience in place , success builds on success , and motivation builds motivation across the Digital Transformation . To support the happiness of their developers , CIOs should allow engineers to rotate regularly across different objectives or workstreams within Digital Transformation projects .
Developers must also be empowered to view and iterate upon their accomplishments quickly . CIOs should also proactively reduce barriers along the path from developers ’ raw ideas to their finished products in production .
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