Achieving Better Governance through Composability and Reuse

Most software projects fail due to non-technical issues. According to a survey by Gartner, 59% of developers said that poor governance and management practices are the primary cause of project failures. In addition, poor governance can lead to security breaches, data loss, and regulatory violations, resulting in significant financial and reputational damage to organizations.

To address these challenges, software development teams need to establish effective governance practices that ensure that software is developed and deployed in a consistent, reliable, and secure manner. One way to achieve this is through a composable and reusable architecture.

Composability and reuse are powerful techniques that can help teams achieve better governance by providing the flexibility and speed needed to add, reuse, and scale new services with reduced time‑to‑market. By breaking down software into several independent modules and using standardized processes, teams can improve consistency, reduce risk, and improve quality.

This article will discuss the challenge of governance in software development, explore the concept of composability and reuse, and discuss how they can achieve better governance in software development. In the end, you will learn how you can easily implement composability.

The Challenge of Governance in Software Development

Governance in software development refers to the set of policies, procedures, and practices that organizations use to ensure that software is developed and deployed consistently, reliably, and securely. Despite its importance, governance remains a significant challenge for many organizations due to a range of factors, including:

• Lack of Clarity*: There is often a lack of clarity around the roles, responsibilities, and processes involved in software development governance, which can lead to confusion, delays, and errors.
• Complexity: Software development projects can have many interdependencies, hidden bugs, and unforeseen interactions between different components, making it difficult to establish effective governance processes that work for everyone.
• Resistance to Change: Many organizations resist change and may be reluctant to adopt new processes or technologies to improve governance, even when they would benefit from doing so.
• Limited Resources: Organizations may lack the necessary resources, such as staff, budget, or technology (most common), to implement and maintain governance processes effectively.

Understanding Composability and Reuse in Software

Composability is the ability to create complex systems or applications by combining several independent software modules. These individual modules were called Packaged Business Capability (PBC) by Gartner. A PBC combines data schemas, APIs, and event channels to perform a well-defined business capability. PBCs can be developed internally within an organization, purchased from third‑party vendors, or can be open‑source components.

The Composable Architecture paradigm does not specify in detail how PBCs should be developed, nor its final architecture. However, the architecture should ensure that each PBC can be scaled, replaced, or removed individually with little impact on the rest of the architecture.

Reuse, on the other hand, refers to the practice of using existing code or modules to build new applications or systems. By reusing modules, developers can save time and effort, reduce costs, and ensure greater consistency and quality across different projects.

Together, composability and reuse provide a powerful framework for software development that can help teams build complex systems quickly and efficiently. By breaking down software into independent, reusable modules, developers can create systems that are easier to manage and maintain over time.

How Composability and Reuse Can Help Achieve Better Governance

Composability and reuse are powerful techniques that can help software development teams achieve better governance by providing a framework for building and maintaining software. Here are some ways in which composability and reuse can help achieve better governance:

1. Standardization: Standardization is a key aspect of enforcing software governance. With composability and reuse, development teams can break down software into reusable, standardized, documented, and tested modules. This ensures that software is developed and deployed consistently and reliably, reducing the risk of errors and improving quality while also meeting security and compliance requirements.
2. Consistency: Composability and reuse help ensure consistency across different software development projects by providing a common set of standards and practices that can be applied across the organization. This improves governance by making managing and monitoring software development activities easier.
3. Flexibility: Composability and reuse allow software development teams to adapt to changing requirements and business needs. This helps ensure software development projects align with organizational objectives and regulatory requirements.
4. Scalability: With Composability, each module can be independently scaled to quickly respond to growing traffic, either by allocating more resources (vertical scaling) or adding more of the same module (horizontal scaling). This ensures that the organization maintains existing governance practices while still meeting the needs of its users and stakeholders.

By leveraging the benefits of composability and reuse, software development teams can establish effective governance policies and procedures that ensure the software is developed and deployed consistently, reliably, and securely. This helps organizations reduce the risk of project failures, security breaches, and other costly and damaging problems while improving quality and reducing costs.

Implementing Composability and Reuse with Mia‑Platform

Adapting quickly to market changes is the only way to remain competitive. To adapt to changes quickly, organizations should be flexible, agile, and able to implement new strategies and technologies quickly.

Mia‑Platform is a Platform Builder that supports organizations in creating their Internal Developer Platform, a tool that accelerates the work of developers by self‑serving them with all the technology they need. Mia‑Platform Console simplifies the complexity of microservice architectures by facilitating a composable‑by‑design approach. Mia‑Platform Marketplace provides a service catalog of ready‑to‑use components, facilitating the reuse of modules in different projects or in different sections of the same project.

With Mia‑Platform's technology, organizations will be able to easily adopt composability and reuse in their software projects and can begin the transition to the Composable Enterprise paradigm. To learn more, check out this free white paper on Composable Enterprise: Why composability is the future.