There’s no question that today’s software leaders grapple with tackling competing priorities: how to scale products with market demand while balancing long-term sustainability; supercharging team productivity without fueling burnout, crafting quality products that are also so cutting-edge as to be disruptive. When there’s a sea of competing to-dos — which is always — often it can be tempting to double down on what we’ve been accustomed to prioritizing rather than making space — foremost in our minds — for new and important innovations to top the list.
For leaders of software and app development teams, tried-and-true priorities often involve core focuses like:
- Driving quality of product and process
- Developing new features and products that differentiate from competitors
- Improving software development velocity and efficiency
- Identifying how and where to integrate automation/AI to maximize impact
- Enhancing system reliability, uptime, and scalability
- Optimizing DevOps and CI/CD practices
- Gathering and implementing user feedback into development cycles
… the list goes on!
But in today’s modern workforce, software leaders need to prioritize not only the above areas, but also emerging needs that are quickly becoming within the purview of the software dev function. Let’s dive into four key areas that deserve a renewed focus in 2025…
Elevate Leadership Influence
Far too often, software teams can end up working in silos, building technically impressive solutions that don’t fully align with revenue goals, customer needs, or market positioning. In 2025, software leaders need to focus on elevating their business leadership, which means investing time and energy in:
- Aligning technology to business strategy, with deep appreciation for the company’s vision, mission, goals, and values
- Crafting cross-functional relationships that go beyond the obvious (e.g., becoming truly enmeshed with the business-facing teams like HR, marketing, and brand)
- Sharpening executive presence and communications skills to be able to break down technical concepts in a way that resonates with non-technical leaders
- Encouraging a culture of experimentation and R&D to send a signal to the business that the software team is one that can hang in the gray
For example: I would encourage software practitioners to identify one member of the business (rather than technical) leadership team with whom they have a good working relationship, but even more importantly where you share a passion or affinity for a subject or area of focus that crosses both of your business and technical responsibilities. Then, in some of your informal chats, explore a couple of cross-functional innovations or “pilot projects” that the two of you could bring forward — first as a thought experiment and then as a potential “mini-project” that the two of you could pilot with your teams to upper management.
In addition to exhibiting an appetite for breakthrough thinking, it creates a potential “hero moment” for everyone involved and helps build recognition, cross-team camaraderie and a strong bond that will pay dividends in future endeavors.
Technical Debt Management
A significant majority of IT leaders — studies show around 70% — consider technical debt a major threat when it comes to their company’s ability to innovate. While never-ending market pressures are frequently the culprit, software teams themselves can be major contributors to technical debt, particularly when pushing rapid development without allocating time for refactoring, documentation, or improving outdated codebases, which might save time in the immediate moment but can slow progress over time.
In 2025, focus must shift towards technical debt management, specifically when it comes to how we think about measuring debt. Technical debt continues to be measured by standard KPIs — reworks, cycle time, defect, burndown rate, bugs, etc. But in an ever-shifting business climate, the way to quantify technical debt needs an overhaul. Today’s software leaders need to embrace a more comprehensive, multi-dimensional approach to reducing and preventing technical debt. That means having a deeper understanding of:
- Unique organizational factors that result in debt accumulation
- The actual maintenance price exacted by accumulated technical dept, and its unfavorable contribution to Product Total Cost of Ownership.
- Macro and micro, and down- and up-operational and revenue stream effects of debt
- “Debt senility” — where certain deferred features never reach the sprint backlog but never go away.
- The role predictive intelligence can pay in prevention and mitigation
Our team recently put together a guide, “Race to Net-Zero Technical Debt,” which features 50 next-gen KPIs to prevent and reverse technical debt. I’d love to know what you think; click here to unlock these KPIs.
Let Data Lead the Way
There’s no doubt that data and analytics already play a critical part in driving software and app development team success. But in 2025, it’s about prioritizing data beyond basics and letting data truly lead the way.
One important place to start is to improve software quality with data — from automating code analysis to measure code complexity, maintainability, and test coverage to more proactively and intentionally tracking defect rates and root causes to improve testing strategies to monitoring user behavior via product analytics to best shape feature development.
Another suggestion is to pay particular attention to the deployment of Artificial Intelligence (AI). AI has become integral to many software solutions, yet its impact can be double-edged. Leaders must ensure that AI systems are effective in expediting critical components of the software delivery lifecycle and ethical. This means establishing frameworks that promote fairness, reduce bias, and safeguard privacy. By being proactive about responsible data governance, organizations can build trust with their users and avoid potential regulatory pitfalls. In an era where data is as valuable as currency, ethical practices are no longer optional: they’re essential. Finally, qualified experts need to remain involved in AI’s maintenance throughout its lifetime; AI by design is continually evolving and adapting and can drift away from fit-for-purpose if not continually monitored and nurtured.
Proactive Risk Management
This one might not always top the list of priorities but in a world where uncertainties abound — e.g., ever-changing market dynamics, global politics, evolving technical challenges — reactive measures are no longer sufficient. Today’s software leader needs to play a critical role in standing up and driving proactive risk management: ensuring software development goes hand-in-hand with business objectives and minimizing potential threats.
For example: when it comes to identifying and assessing risks, software teams need to allocate time and energy to gauging (which entails quantifying) technical, security, operational and business risks, particularly when it comes to things like preventing data breaches and cyber threats and pinpointing development workflow bottlenecks. What’s more, leadership’s role in implementing risk mitigation strategies such as establishing secure coding practices, enforcing code review polities, and adopting agile methodologies has never been greater if we are to adapt quickly to changing requirements and risks.
A proactive approach to risk management not only mitigates threats before they become crises but also builds organizational resilience — and alertness — in an unpredictable world.
In summary, there is certainly no shortage of priorities for today’s software teams. In looking ahead to 2025, software leaders will be challenged to expand their focus beyond traditional priorities and to-dos and elevate the oft-forgotten demands that drive true performance, quality, and output. The priorities discussed above are becoming increasingly important to departmental impact, and embracing these priorities today will ensure a sustainable and prosperous tomorrow for the entire tech ecosystem.