Platform engineering bridges diverse internal development teams, but without standardised processes, this can sometimes lead to confusion, inefficiencies, and a lack of project outcomes. Formalising the processes and platforms within your organisation can be transformative, but requires a structured approach to ensure consistency, scalability, and alignment with business objectives. Here are the steps to formalising your teams’ processes and platforms effectively:
Reading list
Learn more about API platform management and teams here.
STEP 1
Define clear objectives
Establish the goals and objectives of your platform engineering efforts. Understand how these objectives align with the broader business strategy. Whether it’s improving developer efficiency, enhancing collaboration, or accelerating product delivery, clear goals provide a foundation for formalisation.
STEP 2
Establish governance
Implement a governance framework that defines conventions, standards, and guidelines. This governance ensures consistency, security, and adherence to best practices. It covers areas such as platform design, API management, security protocols, and platform lifecycle management.
STEP 3
Design a self-service platform
Create a self-service internal developer platform (IDP) that empowers development teams to access the necessary tools, resources, and workflows. This platform should be user-friendly, well-documented, and capable of supporting various development needs.
STEP 4
Standardise processes
Formalise standardised processes for provisioning, scaling, and managing platform resources. Develop workflows for onboarding new teams, handling updates, and managing access controls. Standardised processes reduce complexity, improve efficiency, and enable teams to work seamlessly.
STEP 5
Shared tooling and solutions
Dev teams that share their tooling and solutions under the oversight of the platform engineering team can contribute to overall efficiency via the platform and greater standardisation. This means that existing solutions can support teams to achieve greater efficiency thanks to the efficient implementation and operation of the internal developer platform.
STEP 6
Provide training and documentation
Offer comprehensive training and documentation for the platform, making it easy for teams to understand and leverage its capabilities. Provide tutorials, best practices, and troubleshooting guides to ensure smooth adoption.
STEP 7
Implement monitoring and analytics
Integrate robust monitoring and analytics into the platform to track usage, performance, and user satisfaction. Use these insights to improve the platform and identify areas for optimisation continuously.
STEP 8
Encourage collaboration
Foster collaboration between platform engineering teams and other development units. Establish channels for feedback and communication to ensure that the platform evolves based on user needs and changing business requirements.
STEP 9
Scale responsively
As your organisation grows, adapt the platform engineering processes and platform to accommodate increased demand. Ensure that the platform can scale seamlessly to support additional teams, projects, and services.
STEP 10
Regular reviews and updates
Schedule regular reviews to assess the effectiveness of the formalised processes and platform. Use feedback from development teams, track key performance metrics, and make necessary adjustments to keep the platform aligned with organisational goals.
Chapter recap
Steps to formalising teams’ processes and platforms:
- Define clear objectives
- Establish governance
- Design a self-serve platform
Efficiency in all its forms is essential right now, given the global economic backdrop. In platform engineering terms, efficiency can save a business time and money by addressing individual teams’ pain points and what benefits one internal dev team can share to benefit others. So, you understand the basics of platform engineering and the importance of ensuring efficient processes and platforms within your organisation - what next? Well, you need a central hub to manage and control your APIs, of course.
- Standardise processes
- Shared tooling and solutions
- Provide training and documentation
- Implement monitoring and analytics
- Encourage collaboration
- Scale responsively
- Regular reviews and updates