Why is Modernization so Hard?

In enterprise environments, modernizing a portfolio of older software brings some particular issues. In my first blog in this series, Why is Modernization Important? When selecting whether to embark on a modernization project, We recommend keeping the following two considerations in mind:

• What are the advantages of shifting the application to a future state in comparison to the effort required to modernize it?
• Can the company continue this prospective state over time?

These aren’t the only things to think about before embarking on a renovation project. An organization is more than the sum of its processes and systems. It is a massive social gathering with human structures and functions. It contains intricate regulations and politics that have been established by decades of service in massive marketplaces with various products, particularly in regulated industries.

Modernization: Alignment is important but difficult

The team must be connected around enterprise goals, compliance, and policies for modernization software successfully. It must also agree to strike a balance between innovation and the limitations of the current environment.

Large organizations, on the other hand, may find it difficult and time-consuming to create the alignment required for a successful outcome. The fundamental difficulty is that the software’s development history and data about running it in production may be dispersed throughout the organization. The issue is that teams are not always willing to share information. Individual team members, particularly those new to a company, may struggle to get the context required to complete their modernization project successfully.

If your team resembles the ones listed below, your chances of successfully upgrading an existing application are higher.

It is important to combine enterprise knowledge with innovation.

The following are some of the causes of misalignment, which result in slow development or bad outcomes that do not provide the desired results.

Silos for gatekeeping

Before the internet, huge corporations were the original IT innovators. In the 1960s, these companies were among the first to adopt mainframe (“big iron”) technology. Many task processes were migrated to mainframe computing. This technology was pricey and required expert personnel on prestigious company teams. These teams and the products they created continue to have a significant impact on today’s business culture.

Exclusive groups can develop when a large number of people gather around something they value (such as a data center). These groups may decide to determine the rules and practices for how others can use the resource. A silo is the mixture of these exclusive groups and the norms and behaviors they establish.

These silos often form around tools or platforms, thereby alienating the intended users of the technology.

Here are some examples:

• Allowing only a few people onto the silo’s platform while being unfriendly to the rest
• Using chargeback models that are incomprehensible to those who wish to use the technology
• Keeping methods to properly employing a product or technology under lock and key

A company may implement new technologies to improve existing applications (for example, a new application performance monitoring tool or a container runtime). However, creating a silo around this technology may result in teams spending an inordinate amount of time waiting for access to the technology to accomplish a project. As a result, the team must work harder and more impatiently to achieve the results required to complete the project.

Excessive middle management and busywork

When an organization has multiple layers of middle management, determining who is responsible for a specific outcome can be difficult. Alignment becomes tough when it is unclear who is making choices or that everyone at the table is invested in reaching the best possible outcome.

When there are infinite checkpoints, too many stand-ups, and too many reports and presentations, heavy layers of middle managers—some of whom have never worked on a software project in a meaningful way—may delay important technical decisions. Employees who could be conducting more significant work may be limited by this “busy work” attitude.

“Rockstars” don’t always save the day

Bringing in a “rockstar” to save the day is a common remedy to unsuccessful results. A rockstar is someone who management believes is extremely intelligent and will just “fix things.”

However, rockstar egos can influence their readiness to compromise. They occasionally disregard organizational context or object to established policies and security standards. As a result, the person you hired to “fix things” becomes involved in a conflict, and everyone is dissatisfied.

Modernization: Attrition leads to lost knowledge

If too many technical resources leave the job, you will lose important enterprise-specific knowledge that is required to create alignment and quality results.

When a large consulting firm and a business, for example, end their relationship, individuals are withdrawn from projects. While this may make sense from a cost-cutting standpoint, workers with vital technology skills have simply walked out the door.

When a good technical specialist leaves, team morale suffers because it appears like the best and brightest are abandoning ship.

If there isn’t proper onboarding training about how to function in your enterprise context, a newly assembled team may lack sufficient understanding of how the organization operates. It may struggle to get the required alignment to make sound decisions. This can cause the team to start late or miss a vital step in getting the application into production. In a future article about preparing the team for a modernization project, I’ll go through what this training should entail. This training can also be useful when dealing with project attrition or replacing a consulting firm.

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Cost-cutting culture

Finding good personnel can be difficult, but a cost-cutting mentality can make it even more difficult. This approach is typically driven by procurement departments who are unaware of the specific knowledge required for individuals to be truly effective in software development and enterprise operations.

When choosing between a large number of inexpensive, unskilled workers and a smaller number of more expensive, better-skilled workers, many businesses often choose more for less.

Procurement and finance departments are usually encouraged to deal with vendors, solution providers, and tech talent agencies for discounts. They may provide or receive feedback on how those resources perform after they are engaged once they have been procured.

Having people that are incapable of doing the job is a significant difficulty. However, having too many people might be an even bigger issue. Cost-cutting actions regarding resources can result in both situations occurring concurrently.

The more members on a team, regardless of innovation or enterprise knowledge, the less probable quality solutions are to be delivered.

Unclear standards and policies

People brought into the team with “enterprise knowledge” must understand the specific policies and processes that govern production workloads in that enterprise. Understanding how it’s done elsewhere will not sufficient.

This is because whenever there is a large issue that causes a problem (such as a public security event or a loss of finances), someone is entrusted with preventing it from happening again. This activity is formalized within the company as different institutional security standards and operational procedures. These unique standards are frequently more appropriate when modifying an existing application rather than creating something new from scratch.

Crowded marketplace

Cloud providers, cloud consultancies, and tool providers fill every breach in today’s workplace environment, attempting to persuade enterprise management that they can improve the enterprise’s software development and operations procedures.

On the surface, investing in the most cutting-edge new technology from a provider makes strategic sense. After all, if your company’s goal is to become the next Google in your industry, who better to assist you than Google? However, integrating something new (such as a public cloud) into a legacy enterprise’s established processes and culture is far from simple.

When a vendor or product fails, it opens the door for another vendor to come in and “fix everything,” potentially feeding into a systemic enterprise repair-and-fail cycle of people who know nothing about the environment coming and going from the alignment process. Confusion can result in more expensive implementations or the inability to achieve the future state as a result of teams failing to account for the environment’s limits when engineering.

Are you struggling to modernize your business? Unsure of where to start or how to overcome the challenges? Look no further! Our experts have the solutions you need to drive successful modernization by joining at Red Hat® Security Identity Management and Active Directory Integration RH362.

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