How do I help close this gap? Well, as my friends at Energized Work would say, by focusing on the right stuff. What's the right stuff? That which yields high value in a fast yet sustainable fashion. This can lead to some quite radical changes; abandoning tools that distract or obstruct the development process, reforming teams into autonomous cross-functional units, making a single individual in the business responsible for all non-technical product decisions. It takes common sense, discipline, courage and commitment.

At ground level I specialise in behaviour driven Grails and Java development using a blend of Agile and Lean Thinking. The teams I coach learn to automate, test and refactor mercilessly to keep code quality high and cost of change low. They will deliver features as small, steady slices and frequently ask for feedback to minimise rework while encouraging flexibility. They will learn techniques for reflection and to strive for continuous improvement.

In summary, I believe in tightly focused and rapidly released software, driven by an actively involved and accountable business representative, but developed and maintained by an autonomous team of technical experts. I call this approach business driven development and the result, business driven software.