With careful portfolio evaluation and a long-term sustainability plan, CIOs can thwart the seemingly inevitable march toward system obsolescence and replacement. Here's how to begin that process:
FIRST MONTH: Get your house in order
Understand which systems you're responsible for and identify possibly redundant systems.
Perform a portfolio analysis. Put each system to the technical-quality/business-value test and determine an evolutionary strategy for it. Communicate your decisions to the development staff and management.
Estimate the value of the systems you're supporting. Determine how much it costs to sustain them so they don't devolve into legacy systems. If the sustainment costs are greater than the value, rethink the business justification for the system.
SECOND MONTH: Allocate resources
Allocate resources to systems based on availability and need. If there are insufficient resources to properly sustain these systems, make a case for additional resources.
Set up a training program. Use both a carrot and stick to move technology-adoption laggards forward. Stress adaptability as a desirable attribute when hiring development staff. Use consultants judiciously with the goal of working them out of the job.
THIRD MONTH: Establish metrics
Set up measures for sustainability based on the number of modification requests and the time these requests remain outstanding—from when they are submitted to when the changes are deployed.
Try to adopt standard technologies and architectures to increase interoperability and make it easier for your development staff to develop and share common skills and capabilities.
Start a measurement-based process-improvement program.
