Building Sustainable Software that Stands the Test of Time and Delivers Value for Years to Come

Software development is a dynamic and complex process that requires constant adaptation and improvement to meet the changing needs and expectations of users, clients, and stakeholders.  

Yes, it is a resource intensive and potentially costly activity that can have significant impact on things like business outcomes and user adoption if not managed and approached the right way. 

So often I see old and outdated software running in organisations as it is critical to business. The risks, however in terms of maintainability, security and agility, are real. How do we overcome this? It really boils down to taking care of a couple of key elements of software development that need to be managed and taken care of right from the start and as long as the software is being developed. 

An approach to software development should be focused on sustainability. What exactly is meant by sustainable software development? In short, the sustainability of software development lies in its ability to continuously meet user demands and remain relevant amidst evolving and extremely fast changing technologies. It is software that remains user centric, agile and rapidly adaptable to business needs.  

In our approach to sustainable software development, we identified core principles to enable sustainable software development for our customers. 

It is a mindset 

Sustainable software development is not only a technical challenge but also a cultural and organisational one. It requires a shift in mindset and behaviour from both developers and stakeholders to embrace sustainability as a core value and goal in software development. 

The mindset of the project team needs to be one that continuously critically thinks, designs, and builds with functional and non-functional requirements of the software top of mind. Every roleplayer in the team needs to always be cognisant of the maintainability, security, reliability, agility and the return on investment in every step of the software development process. 

Agile software built agile 

Sufficient software development projects have failed by now to convince anyone that is involved in software development, to avoid the traditional waterfall methodologies. Not only should the software itself be agile, but the way we deliver it should be even more so. Priorities change. Requirements change. Opportunities for quick wins and faster returns on investment may vary as market conditions change, business or customer needs change. Sometimes a great idea can become irrelevant just because of the mere fact that too much time has passed since the conceptualization of an idea. Because of this, adopting and implementing a software development methodology that is agile is not negotiable. The lean culture, continuous feedback, inspiration, and innovation that is cultivated as part of a properly executed agile methodology like SCRUM is simply invaluable. However, we should not mistake agility with poor management of the software development though. Agile does not mean “free for all and go with the flow”. In fact, the fast and clear communication, responsibility, ownership, and commitment harnessed by a solidly implemented agile methodology will drive the delivery team to embrace change, take calculated risks, learn from failures, and ultimately deliver better software, faster. 

Make your apps intelligent 

It is the era of Artificial Intelligence, the era where we can truly do almost anything with nothing! We simply cannot afford to ignore the great opportunities that AI affords us. No application should be built without it. Existing apps should be modernised to leverage it. It is something that must be part of every business’s strategy for the near future and part of the design thinking of every software application that is being built. 

Yes, AI has quite a few unknowns and can even be scary at times! I have had many conversations with customers and stakeholders that believe there are simply too many risks with employing AI in their organisations. And although I cannot straight out disagree with them, I do believe it boils down to choosing a trusted partner to build with – in our case, Microsoft’s trusted Azure AI platform. Few organisations have the skills, money, vision, platform, and integrity, to comprehensively build compliance, security, and privacy into their AI offerings. Like with the Azure cloud, these concepts are ‘baked’ into Microsoft’s AI. It is architected to protect tenant, group, and individual data and provide AI that is grounded in your data!   

An AI partner that ticks all the right boxes, is a critical part of building sustainable software for ourselves, and our customers. AI that can learn new skills, integrated to thousands of apps is simply a must have to ensure sustainability of your software and unlock value not even considered a few months ago. 

Automate the development cycle  

Talking of AI and sustainability. A key area where software development projects can save a significant amount of time and money is by automating the workflow of the software delivery team. Employing AI to do things like documenting and structuring code, writing unit tests, and assisting with debugging and troubleshooting will free up time for developers to do what they are supposed to do - write code. In fact, any activity that really does not require human creativity, strategy or intelligence are things that should be considered for automation – and in most cases can be automated.  Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployment (CI/CD), infrastructure provisioning, test automation, bug fixing and more. 

Every hour you can give back to your developers to focus on their actual software development tasks will get you to a quality, functional piece of software, faster and cheaper whilst improving sustainability of the solution you are building. 

Get the right skills and people that understand your business  

We all know the cliched story of software developers stuck somewhere in a dark basement, never seen, or heard. Well, it is true that developers are rather unique in character and personality, but that to me does not sound like the ideal team to deliver anyone’s software. 

To build software that will benefit your company, you need a team that is innovative, has excellent communication skills, deep technical skills with loads of experience and most importantly, knows your business and how you make money. This is the only scenario where a project team can effectively advise, recommend and guide you in your application development journey, the architecture, and technologies you should consider and the options you have.  

At 4Sight, we offer Software Development as a Service that can deliver sustainable software development to you and your business. Our Software Development as a Service team’s primary objective is to build a long-term sustainable relationship with you - a partnership that is built on trust and underlined with a deep knowledge of your business. By having intricate knowledge of your long-term goals, aspirations and values, we will provide you with an agile and scalable software development team to deliver bespoke software applications, efficiently and sustainably to you. We ensure this by providing you with the right mix of software development management, technical skills, tooling, and people that can take care of the complexities of software development at every step of the way. 

Contact 4Sight’s Development as a Service team now at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. 

 Jannie Van Aswegen, Divisional Director: Software & App Development, 4Sight BE Cluster