Fractional CTOs bring innovation to your company and experience to your software development and architecture teams.

Companies that rely on technology to be competitive make a common mistake. They wait for their development teams to come up to speed on new technologies, methodologies, and processes. There is an assumption that the way to bring in new technologies is to brute force through the learning curve and gain the necessary experience one day at a time. Regrettably, competitive business environments don’t wait for “one day at a time”.

This approach brings about management agitation due to missed market opportunities, slipping deadlines, increased production issues, and frustration with the team. This happens consistently with the introduction of a new language, framework, architectural changes, or re-platforming. The hidden complexities will only surface after you are well down the path and have made commitments with your customers.

I have seen large financial services organizations replace people in executive technology positions thinking that they can find a person, a unicorn, that has all the necessary knowledge to move their development teams forward with any one of a number of new technologies.

The real answer is to bring in temporary strategic expertise to your team, not simply tactical training or experienced developers, or even the wholesale change at a leadership level. You want to bring in someone that can see the bigger picture across the organization and help the development team deliver using the new technologies that are needed to advance your company’s business strategy.

A Fractional CTO knows what to look for, has an experienced perspective, and no issue asking all the questions that need to be asked. A Fractional CTO in combination with your organizational strategy and development team’s engagement can bring together the successful project your organization needs to gain the timely business benefits of a new technology direction.

If your company is introducing serverless technologies, hybrid mobile development projects, Business Process Management, Robotic Process Automation, and your approach consists mainly of the following steps:

• Download an open-source solution
• Read a few articles and watch a couple of videos
• Get a product certification
• Build a proof of concept
• Start coding

I would recommend finding external expertise to help accelerate the learning curve to make sure your first project with a new technology is successful in bringing value to your business.