#17: FinDev and Wardley mapping with Aleksandar Simovic and Slobodan Stojanovic
Jun 23, 2020
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Aleksandar Simovic, a Senior software engineer at Science Exchange, and Slobodan Stojanovic, a Serverless practitioner, dive into the transformative power of Wardley Mapping and Financial-Driven Development (FinDev). They discuss how serverless technology accelerates productivity for projects like Vacation Tracker, emphasizing strategic focus and cost-effectiveness. The duo elaborates on integrating finance with development to prioritize customer-driven projects and optimizing resources while tackling vendor lock-in challenges with innovative architecture.
Serverless architecture allows developers to focus on essential application features by outsourcing functions to cloud providers, reducing manual processes.
Wardley mapping enhances strategic decision-making by visually analyzing business landscapes, optimizing resource allocation, and clarifying development priorities.
Deep dives
The Benefits of Serverless Architecture
Serverless architecture streamlines development by allowing teams to focus on essential application features rather than managing infrastructure. Developers can outsource various functions to cloud providers like AWS, significantly reducing the time spent on manual processes. This is exemplified through applications like Vacation Tracker, which integrates with communication tools and automates tasks using serverless components. However, there is a learning curve involved, as teams must adapt their approaches to leverage serverless benefits effectively.
Understanding Wardley Mapping
Wardley mapping serves as a visual tool that helps organizations analyze their business landscape and value chains effectively. By mapping out components, companies can better understand which services to build in-house and which to outsource, thereby optimizing resource allocation. This approach allows for better anticipation of market changes and helps prioritize development efforts based on actual business needs. The mapping technique thus enhances strategic decision-making and clarifies focus areas for company resources.
Financial-Driven Development (FinDev)
Financial-driven development, or FinDev, highlights the significance of aligning development processes with financial implications, promoting efficient resource utilization. Companies can adopt a pay-as-you-go model, which allows for expense management based on actual usage rather than upfront costs. For instance, Vacation Tracker employs FinDev principles to evaluate development priorities by analyzing customer needs and operational costs, which leads to informed decision-making. This model also involves assessing the financial impact of features or bugs, enabling teams to prioritize spending in the most economically beneficial areas.
They are running back-to-back courses this month, on "Testing Serverless Applications" and "Serverless for Frontend Developers". Check them out and enrol on Homeschool.dev.
If you want to learn about Wardley Maps, then you can read the free book on Medium here, or take the online video course here.
To listen to the conversion we had with Joe Emison (mentioned in this conversation) about monorepoes and build vs. buy, check out Episode 2, and Episode 3 respectively.
And lastly, check out Furnace.io for a data-shipping platform (like Segment) that offers usage-based pricing.
For more stories about real-world use of serverless technologies, please follow us on Twitter as @RealWorldSls and subscribe to this podcast.