10.6. Conclusions

As we drive enterprise software delivery organizations toward greater efficiency, many interesting approaches to industrialization of software delivery can be introduced. Each brings with it a series of important opportunities for improvement but can also raise challenges, introduce risks, and create instabilities in an existing organization.

In this chapter I discuss important areas of variability and risk associated with introducing supply chain and software factory approaches. I’ll summarize this discussion by highlighting six main lessons:

• Lesson 1. Use the characteristics of the enterprise to guide where and how industrialized approaches to enterprise software delivery can be more readily applied.

• Lesson 2. Assess the process maturity of the enterprise and pay attention to differences in how it relates to the maturity of other organizations in the software supply chain.