As companies move to agile and DevOps, silos are coming down and there is more interaction and collaboration among teams. Quality is also becoming everyone's responsibility for the entire software development lifecycle. Quality is more than just testing: Consider a quality value stream along the overall value chain.

With a framework in place, engineers can stop worrying about everything that framework does for them. Your team can focus on solving your business problems instead of building yet another solution to an old problem that's been solved before. Look around and identify the mistakes your team is making over and over.

Many companies avoid genuine innovation for fear of making potentially complex changes without producing measurable results. But you can start small with internal changes that have limited scope and that deliver prompt solutions, so there's less upfront investment—and less risk. Here's how to innovate inexpensively.