Technology for its own sake rarely serves a business well. MonoSpear’s engineering philosophy is centered around a simple question at every step of every engagement: what business outcome does this actually change? This seems like an obvious point, but it’s one that can be easy to overlook when dealing with the day-to-day details of a technology project, where the focus necessarily turns to the technical challenge at hand, which may have little direct connection to the motivating business outcome that led to the engagement in the first place.
Outcome-Focused Engineering At MonoSpear
Every project begins with a clearly-defined business metric to be altered, whether that be something as simple as reduced cost or increased cycle-time or something more complex like improved customer experience, before turning to technology to affect that change. This is a consciouslychosen starting point, and one that differs from the approach to technology projects that MonoSpear has observed in the wider world. Technology projects in the enterprise world often begin with choosing a particular technology or capability while making only loose connections to business outcomes, even if those connections are made only after the fact.
Engineering from an outcome-focused position changes the dynamics of the conversation considerably. If a project has improvement in a clearly-defined process cycle-time as its goal, then each choice of architecture and technology is made with that outcome in mind – is this particular technical choice going to accelerate this process, or does it add unnecessary complexity and capability that may have little connection to the stated purpose of the project? This discipline is critical to avoid the kinds of outcome divergence that can happen when projects begin from a technology-driven position, where the project can begin to acquire capabilities that are interesting from a technical standpoint but which have only tenuous connections to the business outcomes the project was supposed to affect.
Avoiding Technology For Technology’s Sake
It can be easy to gravitate towards newer platforms and frameworks. This is understandable – technical professionals tend to have a natural interest in working with the latest and greatest capabilities, and there is value in keeping up-to-date with the latest developments in the industry. At MonoSpear, this impulse is tempered by a focus on technology choices that affect the desired business outcome.
That is not to say that newer approaches are inherently discounted – if a particular approach offers demonstrable value in accelerating the progress towards an engagement’s stated business outcome, then it will be considered, and MonoSpear’s engineering team will use its knowledge of the latest capabilities in order to identify when that might be the case. The difference lies in making sure that the choice to use a particular technology in a client engagement is traceable to a business outcome, rather than simply making that choice because the technology is available and appealing. It is important to apply this kind of discipline particularly when considering the newest capabilities, especially in areas like agentic AI, where the technical world has seen a tremendous amount of innovation in recent months and the natural inclination to adopt these capabilities may be strongest precisely because of their novelty.
Measuring What Was Promised
Projects are measured in terms of the business outcomes they affect, rather than simply technical delivery, in order to ensure that engineering keeps its eye on the ball. This outcome-focused approach keeps projects focused on value delivery, rather than allowing them to slip into purelytechnical conversations about what can or cannot be delivered.
This kind of outcome-focused measurement is critical to keeping a project on-track, especially when it becomes clear partway through that the technical approach that was selected is not accelerating progress towards the desired business outcome, rather than discovering this at the very end of the project when little can be done about it.
This kind of discipline requires upfront work to establish what outcomes are being measured, and how they are being tracked against a baseline for the duration of the project, which is why it connects to the next point.
Making This Philosophy Practical In Larger Engagements
As engagements grow in scope and scale, it can become harder to maintain this kind of outcomefocused engineering, particularly when there are multiple workstreams underway as well as the presence of multiple individuals who may have little direct connection to the bigger-picture business outcomes but who are nonetheless responsible for individual elements of the technical stack. At MonoSpear, this discipline is maintained by always ensuring that every member of an engagement understands the business outcome being pursued, and by making sure that regular project reviews are done with the business outcome in mind in order to spot any slippage early and adjust course if necessary.
The MonoSpear Philosophy
This outcome-focused approach underlines everything MonoSpear does, from the company’s engineering work to its consulting to its work in AI. Whether an engagement takes the form of Oracle implementation, digital engineering or something else entirely, the same principles apply – make sure that every project has a business outcome, adhere to that outcome throughout the project, and always measure technical progress against it in order to ensure that MonoSpear’s work continues to deliver on the promised value.
FAQs
1. What does “engineering for outcomes” mean?
It means that every project should begin from a position of clearly-defined business metrics, and that technology choices should be made with those metrics in mind while also measuring technical progress against them in order to ensure value delivery.
2. How does MonoSpear avoid adopting unnecessary technologies?
By making sure that every technology choice is made with an eye towards accelerating progress towards a business outcome.
3. How are projects measured at MonoSpear?
They are measured in terms of the business outcomes they affect, rather than technical progress, by establishing a baseline for those outcomes at the beginning of a project
4. How do MonoSpear’s varied services connect to one another?
They are united by an outcome-focused philosophy that informs everything the company does, whether that takes the form of consulting, engineering or otherwise.