We find that more and more organizations need to replace aging legacy systems to keep up with the demands of their customers (both internal and external). One antipattern we keep seeing is legacy migration feature parity , the desire to retain feature parity with the old. We see this as a huge missed opportunity. Often the old systems have bloated over time, with many features unused by users (50% according to a 2014 Standish Group report) and business processes that have evolved over time. Replacing these features is a waste. Our advice: Convince your customers to take a step back and understand what their users currently need and prioritize these needs against business outcomes and metrics — which often is easier said than done. This means conducting user research and applying modern product development practices rather than simply replacing the existing ones.
We find that more and more organizations need to replace aging legacy systems to keep up with the demands of their customers (both internal and external). One antipattern we keep seeing is legacy migration feature parity, the desire to retain feature parity with the old. We see this as a huge missed opportunity. Often the old systems have bloated over time, with many features unused by users (50% according to a 2014 Standish Group report) and business processes that have evolved over time. Replacing these features is a waste. Our advice: Convince your customers to take a step back and understand what their users currently need and prioritize these needs against business outcomes and metrics — which often is easier said than done. This means conducting user research and applying modern product development practices rather than simply replacing the existing ones.
