It seems like every time we turn around we hear of another company cancelling a major systems project. That’s a shame; many of these projects were worthwhile. Some were still on the drawing boards; others had a considerable amount already invested; and, sadly, some cancellations came with pink slips.
But there’s no real point in mourning. We need to collectively pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off and figure out what’s next.
One of the things we’ve been espousing for a decade now is the idea of improving your architecture one manageable project at a time. When you take the long view, you recognize several things:
· Historically, failing to take the long view has led to a large number of applications that were opportunistically integrated together in a fashion that now nearly stops forward progress.
· A future architecture is possible, where each application or service does one thing and does it well, and can be replaced with relative ease.
· You will be doing many more application replacement and enhancement projects over the years. Rather than making the overall systems of systems worse, you could be using the opportunity to make things incrementally better.
Understanding, organizing and planning for a better future takes time. And when you’re in the midst of a major project rollout, time is one thing that seems to be in short supply.
Let’s look at this recession and the cancellation of projects as the glass being half full: the noise and distraction of the mega project has subsided. Abraham Lincoln once said, “If I had six hours to chop down a tree I’d spend four sharpening my axe.” Seems like a once-in-a-decade opportunity to spend some quality time to understand your existing architecture better, determine what you’d like your future architecture to look like, and what a series of projects to get there might look like.
When the recovery comes, you’ll be ready. |