Platform Engineering Dies in 4 Weeks
Four weeks. That is how long it should take to build an internal developer platform (IDP). It sounds crazy, and in an environment of dead-on-arrival platform engineering initiatives plagued by years-long, multimillion dollar working groups and research phases, it would be. Fortunately, the best platforms aren’t built like that. They’re built nimble, low cost and — most of all — fast.
Recent success stories make it clear that good platform engineering doesn’t take 18 months of planning. It happens fast. Companies of all sizes and industries are getting started in just four weeks with a minimum viable platform (MVP).
Four weeks sounds like an impossibly fast time. However, when you dive into the concept of an MVP and why most platform engineering initiatives fail in a slow death, it’s clear why four weeks is exactly how long it should take.
Why Do Most Platform Engineering Initiatives Fail?
Platform engineering and IDPs are relatively new concepts. Despite the incredible growth of platform engineering and the proliferation of best practices and open source IDP reference architectures, many platform engineering initiatives still fail and die before achieving meaningful results.
They’re not taking off, stuck in evaluation, unable to get stakeholders excited and on board. Or their business cases aren’t strong enough to get executive buy-in.
Many people believe that IDPs struggle due to technical mistakes like the wrong stack or incorrect tooling. This is false.
IDPs fail because most platform teams don’t have the right processes or expertise to get key stakeholders on board with their IDP initiative. And once they get stakeholders on board, they can’t prove value to them fast enough to keep the initiative from losing momentum.
This idea that a platform engineering initiative should include all stakeholders and cover all use cases from the start causes these initiatives to collapse with nothing to show except months (or years) of wasted time and potentially millions down the drain.
The MVP framework cuts directly through all of these issues.
Get Started in 4 Weeks with an MVP
By using a fast-moving pioneer team to build a representative use case, you can quickly prove an IDP’s value to key stakeholders. It can also build a clear roadmap to iterate on and expand the platform. This framework removes funding, legal and compliance complexity, and massively simplifies the process of getting the attention and resources your platform needs.
This simpler use case makes it faster and easier to prove value and get the resources and support necessary to expand because:
- Building something small takes fewer resources and red tape, making it easier to prove value.
- Expanding the platform based on internal data and user feedback helps encourage adoption.
To build an MVP:
- Identify the pioneer team that will lead the way to drive innovation. This might be the team that led your Kubernetes or cloud migration.
- Build a simple first version of the platform in the context of a HelloWorld. This use case should be representative and repeatable.
- Develop your iterative productlike roadmap based on user feedback.
- Demo the platform to relevant stakeholders who can drive adoption and expansion.
Your MVP is a representative case for your platform. The goal is to move fast and demonstrate value so that you can expand it. Your HelloWorld should reflect your estate of real apps as much as possible. Avoid complicated cases, and focus on the most common denominator of infrastructure your apps use.
Iterate and Expand to an Enterprise-Grade Internal Developer Platform
After four weeks, you will have an MVP that proves to you and your key stakeholders that it is worthy of additional investment and is ready to grow to the next phase.
You can use this MVP as a foundation for a full-scale IDP, and by building it based on real user feedback and use cases, you can deliver value to your organization and the people using it within weeks, rather than months or years.
Ready to get started? The Humanitec MVP program offers help and guidance to launch your platform engineering initiative quickly and effectively, one that won’t just survive but thrive. Start building your MVP in four weeks by contacting our platform architects to learn more.
