Invest in products, not projects
Don’t risk reverting to an outdated, risk-riddled, rotted state. Instead, provide ongoing support and maintenance to keep systems viable. The premise is rather simple.
Research
Design
Build
Maintain
Support
Keep applications evergreen through a steady stream of features releases and fixes. Agile alone is not enough. To maintain and support the product, fund the change at the product level instead of a single project. Adjust the investment model to accommodate ongoing oversight—continually investing in products over time.
Adopting a product over project mentality at all levels of the organization is key to successful legacy modernization efforts. A product mindset challenges the team responsible for the application to think about the long-term goals in small iterative pieces. Evaluate the product against established metrics within the build-measure-learn loop, empowering the team to learn from and celebrate successes—as well as quickly react to failure. Build a culture around products should not end after the first release. Keeping systems modernized with continued support and maintenance enables enterprises to respond to market conditions and business needs quickly.