So what can we do? Here are my key takeaways from the first six chapters of Nick Tune's excellent book "Architecture Modernization
Socio-technical alignment of software, strategy, and structure".
1. You don't modernize for the sake of modernization!
You need to express the true business narrative, the desired business outcomes and understand how architecture modernization can drive it.
Legacy architectures are usually providing some business value, but they are also slow and expensive to change, prone to unreliability and increasingly open to new security compromises.
The costs of software decay become visible when the costs of repair are high.
2. A modern architecture is a socio-technical architecture!
How we organize people and their interactions will be mirrored in our architecture.
When you start modernizing, don't design the social structure (teams, organization, workspace) and the technical system architecture in isolation.
3. Surprise, there is no quick fix!
Moving from aging to modernized architecture is hard, and it's complex. If this was a quick fix, it wouldn’t be one of the biggest problems companies today face.
That said, it shouldn’t take years for modernization to start delivering value.
The architecture is never fixed and will continuously evolve as the context is changing. Don’t treat modernization as a traditional one-off project.
4. Modernization is touching every aspect of your operating model!
Will you modernize with the same operating model, mindset and way of working that caused the garden to overgrow in the first place? Bad idea.
You should embrace deep changes in how you empower cross-functional & value stream aligned product teams, involve the users, break down the business and IT barriers, adjust the funding models and invest in technical quality.
At least if you want to avoid yet another large and expensive modernization initiative in a few years.
5. Modernization is a social activity!
Modernization is a social activity where diverse groups come together and share their knowledge to make as much details and complexity visible.
You must get rid of the traditional mindset of treating “THE BUSINESS” (the customer giving orders) and “IT” (the vendor taking orders) as separate units. They are in fact two sides of the same coin.
This is not just about rebuilding an old system, it’s also about modernizing the business domain and business processes. It's a joint effort.
What do you think companies must do to succeed with architecture modernizations?
