1. Planning for your internal developer platform

1.1 Key stakeholders

Here is a list of key stakeholders to identify and engage with when planning for your developer platform:

• Executive Sponsor—this is the senior-most person who will support your developer platform efforts. The Chief Technology Officer, VP of Engineering, and Head of Platforms are example titles of people who might take on this role, but it varies widely between organizations.
• Influential Developers—It’s helpful to have a small group of influential developers from across your organization involved or, at minimum, kept informed of your plans to roll out Compass.
• Platform team / DevOps engineers—A key benefit of Compass is its ability to connect and pull information from the developer toolchain. Those responsible for these tools are important partners and stakeholders for your rollout.

• Policy owners/governance teams - Compass has the ability to improve quality outcomes and the experience of developers by transforming the way standards are communicated to engineering teams, and how these are tracked and managed. Engaging with these stakeholders is helpful, although not necessarily required at the initial stages of planning.

Once you have your list of stakeholders, you should engage with them to understand their needs and expectations and get their support for your roll-out. It’s a good idea to form a steering committee made up of these core stakeholders with whom you will share progress updates, seek guidance, and ask for support when required.