DigitalSandbox

At work I have been working on a project where we are attempting to bring our client’s old terminal green screen system into the age of GUI goodness. We have been working on this project now for over a year, if you include all the planning and prototyping. The system is complex and every time we review the functionality with the client there are changes. The programs functionality has become a moving target that changes with each subsequent meeting. A multi-million dollar project and we’re doing it all wrong.

This is, sadly, the way too many businesses operate. At one point they adopted a program that met their needs and performed the tasks required. Over time the company’s needs changed and evolved, and so did the program. It has been cobbled together by a collection of technologies that have been cajoled (or coerced) into working together. At some point they realize that the system needs to be updated and they decide to make the change.

And here is where they go wrong. They decide that they are going to modernize their old system. That is to say, they are going to convert their old processes into a new interface. The old system is now the master. Frankenstein’s monster is calling the shots. A program that has been adapted to perform tasks it was not intended to do, is now the blueprint for how those tasks are carried out.

Rather than evaluate whether their processes can be simplified, streamlined, or even eliminated, they look at how they do it currently and say, “make the new system follow this path.” When you step back and look at it, the idea is shear lunacy. Why not take the opportunity to remove the cruft and junk in the system?

The reason is simple. Inertia. There is too much inertia at this point to change the way things are done. They have branches all over the place. Thousands of employees. There is too much invested in the current regime to alter the course. Companies, as a rule, are change-phobic. It scares them and makes them nervous. To accept that kind of change takes guts and vision. Sadly, many companies lack the guts even if they might have the vision.