As economic trends provide increasing cause for concern, management teams would do well to carefully consider their software delivery strategy. Above all, companies should strive for resilience, ensuring they are well positioned to continue delivering value to their customers while also controlling costs. Here are a few tips for optimizing your software delivery strategy for a slow-down or recession:

  1. Prioritize projects that deliver the most value
    During a recession, it becomes more important than ever to invest your resources in the areas that will deliver the most value to your customers and your business. Consider using techniques like value stream mapping to identify the projects that will have the greatest impact on your bottom line and focus your efforts there.
  2. Double down on agile and lean principles
    Agile and lean principles can be particularly useful during a recession, as they allow you to quickly adapt to changing market conditions and customer needs. By adopting an agile approach, you can deliver value to your customers more quickly and at a lower cost, and by using lean principles, you can eliminate waste and inefficiency in your development process.
  3. Consider outsourcing
    During a recession, it may be necessary to reduce costs in order to maintain profitability. One way to do this is to consider outsourcing some of your development work to a third-party vendor. Outsourcing can help you access a wider pool of talent at a lower cost, and can allow you to focus your in-house team on the most critical projects.
  4. Invest in training and development
    While it may be tempting to cut back on training and development during a recession, this can be a mistake. Investing in the skills and capabilities of your team can help them deliver higher quality solutions more quickly, which can help you maintain a competitive advantage even in a challenging economic environment.

The most important thing you can do is not to wait. Think carefully about how bad things could get and how long it might last, and make a plan now for your worst case scenario. Then you can hope for the best, but sleep at night knowing you’re ready for whatever comes.