Why Every Executive Should Understand Product and Software Development
Anslem Oshionebo, engineer turned CEO, on why business leaders need a working understanding of product and software development in every industry.
Every company is now a software company, whether it sells payments, debt recovery services or oil and gas advisory. The executives who lead well in this environment are not necessarily programmers, but they understand how software gets built, what makes it fail and how to make good decisions about it. I started my career as an engineer, moved into software and technology development, and later led product and software development for international payments and compliance technology. These are the principles I rely on.
Software is never finished
A building is completed. Software is maintained, secured, updated and extended for as long as the business uses it. Budgets that treat technology as a one-off project rather than a running cost create fragile systems and frustrated teams.
Small releases beat big launches
Shipping small, frequent improvements and measuring their effect reduces risk and reveals what customers actually value. Big-bang launches hide problems until it is expensive to fix them.
Data is a product decision
What you collect, how you structure it and who can see it determines what you can automate, analyse and prove later. Executives should ask early what data a new system creates and how it will be governed, especially under data protection law.
Security and compliance belong in the design
In regulated businesses, controls designed into the workflow are cheaper and stronger than controls added after an incident or an audit finding. My years in audit taught me to ask how a system proves that the right thing happened, not only whether it did.
Build, buy or partner
Build what differentiates you. Buy what is standard. Partner where speed matters more than control. At Tenaza, we built our own case management, intake and AI tracing tools because they are core to how we recover debts, and we rely on proven platforms for everything else.
Questions every executive should ask their technology team
- What problem are we solving, for whom, and how will we measure success?
- What is the smallest version we can release to learn from real users?
- What data will this collect, and how is it protected?
- How do we deploy changes, and how quickly can we roll back if something breaks?
- What happens if a key developer leaves? Is the system documented?
- What are the ongoing costs after launch: hosting, licences, support and security?
Reading a technology roadmap
A good roadmap shows outcomes, not just features. Instead of "build reporting module", it says "reduce month-end reporting time from five days to two". It shows dependencies, risks and the trade-offs being made. If a roadmap has no room for maintenance, security updates or technical debt, it is unrealistic. As a rule of thumb, mature products spend a meaningful share of engineering time keeping existing systems healthy.
Lessons from building software across 32 countries
When I co-founded a software company that expanded into more than 32 countries, three lessons stood out. First, local regulation shapes the product as much as customer preferences do, so compliance belongs in the design. Second, simple products scale; every special case adds cost forever. Third, the best ideas often came from customer support teams, who heard user problems first. Executives who listen to those teams make better product decisions.
Learn the vocabulary
Leaders do not need to write code, but they should understand terms such as API, technical debt, uptime, release cycle and model drift well enough to ask good questions. AI makes this more important: executives who understand how models are trained, tested and monitored will deploy them responsibly and get more value from them.
The gap between business strategy and technology execution is where most transformation programmes fail. Executives who close that gap personally give their companies a lasting advantage.
Common questions
Why should executives understand software development?
Because most products, processes and customer experiences now depend on software. Leaders who understand the basics make better investment, risk and prioritisation decisions.
Should we build or buy software?
Buy for common needs where you do not differentiate, such as accounting or HR. Build where the software is part of your competitive advantage. Partner when speed and specialist expertise matter more than control.