Unlocking Innovation Through Platform Adoption
Mastering the benefits, challenges and best practices of Platform Engineering is crucial for businesses to stay competitive and innovative in today’s fast-evolving digital environment.
As Platform Engineering becomes increasingly significant in the IT landscape, its adoption is on the rise. Organizations that maximize the benefits of platform engineering typically use specific tools and strategies to ensure comprehensive implementation.
Let’s dive deeper into how Platform Engineering is shaping modern IT and explore the key elements of success of platform adoption.
The importance of platform adoption
Platform Engineering, the practice of designing and building Internal Developer Platforms (IDPs), has become crucial for organizations seeking to enhance efficiency, scalability, and innovation in software development. It focuses on creating and managing the infrastructure that sustains applications and services, ensuring seamless operations and consistent development environments.
Platform Engineering is the foundation of modern software development, integrating people, processes, and technology to create and manage efficient platforms that align with business objectives. By optimizing infrastructure for both developers and organizational outcomes, it streamlines operations and accelerates innovation.
Gartner predicts that by 2025, 95% of enterprises will fail to scale their DevOps initiatives unless they adopt shared self-service platform strategies. Moreover, by 2026, 80% of large engineering organizations will have dedicated platform teams to meet these demands, emphasizing the increasing need for a platform-centric approach to drive success.
In this evolving landscape, the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) plays a vital role, in fostering innovation and driving the adoption of cloud-native technologies. Through initiatives such as the CNCF Platforms White Paper, the foundation highlights the importance of tailored platform strategies, helping organizations leverage cloud-native solutions to meet their specific business goals and ensure long-term success.
To help businesses evolve their platform engineering capabilities, the CNCF introduced the Platform Engineering Maturity Model (PMM). This model serves as a roadmap, identifying key areas for improvement and providing a structured approach to drive efficiency, innovation, and platform maturity.
Let’s see what this is all about.
The CNCF Platform Engineering Maturity Model
Platform Engineering presents a range of challenges and opportunities that organizations must navigate as they evolve their platforms. On one hand, teams face the complexities of integrating diverse systems, managing scalability, and ensuring security. On the other hand, the process unlocks significant opportunities to enhance efficiency, streamline operations, and drive innovation. By carefully balancing these challenges with the opportunities for automation, self-service capabilities, and strategic alignment, platform teams can deliver robust solutions that accelerate development and foster growth across the organization.
Source: Platform Engineering Maturity Model
This model is not intended to rigidly classify organizations or platform teams into fixed levels (e.g. Level 1, Level 2 and so on). Instead, each aspect of platform engineering should be evaluated independently, as teams may exhibit characteristics from different levels (Provisional, Operational, Scalable, Optimizing) simultaneously.
Each aspect (Investment, Adoption, Interfaces, Operations and Measurement) represents a continuum and reflects the impact of platform engineering, with lower levels being more tactical and higher levels more strategic. The model encourages a development approach similar to digital products: identify needs, develop minimal solutions, iterate, and then scale. Achieving success involves balancing technology with people, processes, and policies, often requiring collaboration across the entire organization. However, the appropriate maturity level for any company depends on its unique context.
Consider how this model might be implemented in practice. For instance, a large enterprise with several development teams could take advantage of an advanced platform that provides features like automated workflows, self-service tools, and robust security measures. This would streamline operations, enhance efficiency, and ensure secure collaboration across teams.
Striking the Right Balance: Tailoring Platform Maturity for Success
Investing in a platform that exceeds your organization’s actual needs can lead to unnecessary complexity, over-engineering, and increased costs, without delivering meaningful value in return. Conversely, if you underinvest in platform maturity, you may face inefficiencies, slower development processes, and challenges when scaling. Both over- and under-investing can hinder your platform’s success and undermine its overall adoption.
Ultimately, companies should evaluate their current and future needs, team size, and strategic objectives to determine the right level of platform engineering maturity. Customizing the platform’s capabilities to meet these specific requirements helps the organization stay agile, efficient, and competitive without incurring unnecessary costs.
Now that you have understood the need for a platform and the existence of a valuable tool that can help guide you in making the right decisions for a successful platform adoption initiativ, let’s now explore the key principles of platform adoption.
Key principles of a platform adoption
As stated in CNCF Platforms White Paper, an IDP is a collection of APIs, tools, services, knowledge, and support, all structured as a cohesive internal product. Effective platforms solve real problems at different levels in the company: both technical and business figures.
In the following paragraphs, we will briefly review the key concepts inherent to platform adoption:
- Platform-as-a-product
- MVP and TVP
- Platform adoption leads to culture and change management
Platform-as-a-product
Adopting a platform-as-a-product mindset enables platform teams to create a solution that is both useful and valued across the entire company, while also helping them define what an effective and compelling IDP should look like for their organization.
A “product” mindset is vital for the development of effective IDPs. By approaching the IDP as a product with a well-defined mission, conducting comprehensive user research, and employing targeted marketing strategies, platform teams can create tools that developers not only require but are highly motivated to adopt.
However, this approach comes with its own set of challenges. Platform teams should focus on understanding internal users’ needs, encourage voluntary adoption, and prioritize user empowerment alongside technical solutions.
By embracing the platform-as-a-product concept, organizations can recognize that an IDP is not a static solution, but an evolving product that adapts to the changing needs of its users and the organization as a whole.
MVP and TVP
In platform adoption, the Minimum Viable Product (MVP) and Thinnest Viable Platform (TVP) play key roles in balancing immediate needs with long-term goals.
The MVP is the initial, simplified version of the platform that delivers core features, allowing for early validation, rapid feedback, faster time to market, and stakeholder confidence. It helps ensure that the platform meets users’ needs while reducing risk.
The concept of the Thinnest Viable Platform (TVP) emphasizes starting with a minimal, functional platform that meets immediate needs without overcomplicating the architecture. This approach is crucial because it allows teams to focus on delivering value quickly, avoiding the pitfalls of over-engineering and unnecessary complexity. By starting small, organizations can iteratively build and expand the platform based on actual user feedback and evolving needs, ensuring that investments are aligned with real requirements and delivering tangible benefits over time.
Together, MVP and TVP guide platform development from early-stage delivery to long-term success.
Platform adoption leads to culture and change management
Adopting a platform is more than a tech upgrade; it’s a cultural and managerial overhaul. It grants developers autonomy, promotes collaboration, and necessitates trust, continuous learning, and adaptability. This shift breaks down silos, fosters teamwork, and integrates new tools and processes.
Platform adoption requires strong leadership, alignment, and responsibility changes. Leaders must advocate for the change, allocate resources, and guide teams and stakeholders through the transition. This includes standardizing processes and integrating DevOps and Agile practices while managing the cultural shift to maximize the platform’s benefits.
For a company considering Platform Engineering, should it develop a platform in-house, invest in an existing market solution, or choose a hybrid approach that combines both?
Build, Buy or Build-and-Buy your platform?
“Make or Buy” or a mix of them comes with some pros and cons that companies should consider before adopting a platform.
Buy a Platform from a vendor
Pro
Relying on a Platform vendor reduces internal resource burden, offers strong vendor support, and enables quicker application deployment with built-in security features at a predictable, lower cost.
Cons
Buying a platform can be inflexible for mature setups, pose scaling limits, and risk vendor lock-in. It may also struggle with integrating legacy systems, posing integration and security challenges.
Many companies, however, choose a ‘make’ approach over ‘buy,’ often underestimating the development challenges involved in building a platform.
Build your own Internal Developer Platform
Pro
Building an Internal Developer Platform is challenging but offers tailored solutions, especially for large enterprises.
In-house IDPs provide full control over design and the features, benefiting regulated industries and aligning with specific developer needs. Platform teams can scale more effectively than vendor solutions, ensuring flexibility and easy component switching as the platform matures. Seamless integration with proprietary technologies is better achieved with a custom IDP.
Cons
Setting up an IDP requires significant time and expense. A platform-as-a-product approach is necessary to secure ongoing investment and support, preventing project cancellation. Managing new standards, technology updates, and tooling is essential as the platform grows.
What about the “Build and Buy” approach?
Most organizations use a mix of open-source, commercial and in-house tools for their IDP, combining custom-built and purchased components to maximize benefits and minimize drawbacks. While the CNCF landscape offers a lot of both closed and open tools, finding the best fit can be challenging. However, the community has significantly improved the platform tooling landscape over the years.
Choosing the build-and-buy approach can provide significant opportunities for customization and growth. To maximize the benefits and maintain flexibility, it is important to design an effective architecture and carefully evaluate the use of third-party components to avoid falling into the typical vendor lock-in problem and thus always have a modular and flexible solution.
Bridging Strategy and Execution
No matter whether you choose to build, buy, or opt for a hybrid approach, the success of your platform hinges on more than just the choice of tools. Effective implementation and adoption are key to realizing its full potential. Organizations must ensure that their chosen platform not only addresses current technical needs but also fosters widespread developer adoption and efficient workflows.
This is where a well-structured, easy-to-use platform becomes critical. By providing developers with self-service capabilities and automation, you can streamline the platform adoption process and unlock your platform’s value faster.
Wrapping Up: Platform Adoption as a Strategic Imperative
Platform engineering has become a key driver of innovation, and the broader tech community has played a crucial role in advancing this field. Through shared tools, open-source initiatives, and collaborative efforts, the community has made significant strides in simplifying the platform engineering journey for organizations. These contributions help streamline the creation and management of Internal Developer Platforms (IDPs) by offering valuable resources and best practices that accelerate adoption.
One such critical resource is the Platform Engineering Maturity Model (PMM). This model is essential for organizations at different stages of platform adoption, providing a structured framework to assess and evolve their platform capabilities. It helps businesses tailor their approach to suit their specific needs, guiding them from tactical implementations to strategic outcomes.
Three key principles drive successful platform adoption:
- Platform-as-a-Product: Treating platforms as products ensures that they continually meet developer and organizational needs, fostering lasting success.
- MVP and TVP: Starting with a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) and a Thinnest Viable Platform (TVP) allows for quick delivery of essential features, enabling iterative improvements based on user feedback.
- Culture and change management: Platform adoption is more than a technical upgrade—it’s a cultural transformation requiring leadership, collaboration, and new workflows across the organization.
When choosing an adoption path, organizations can build, buy, or combine both approaches. The choice depends on factors like resources, team capacity, and business objectives. Tools like Mia-Platform Console offer valuable support, enabling businesses to manage platforms efficiently through automation and self-service.
One last, important consideration.
Platform adoption is not just a buzzword: it’s a strategic decision that reshapes a business. With the right platform, organizations can drive innovation, scale efficiently, and adapt to an ever-changing technological landscape.
