Modernizing Legacy Systems: Software Technologies, Engineering Processes, and Business Practices

with Vivian Martin

Vivian Martin is a Senior Information Systems Engineer at Tec-Masters, Inc.

I have always thought that one man of tolerable abilities may work great changes, and accomplish great affairs among mankind, if he first forms a good plan, and, cutting off all amusements or other employments that would divert his attention, make the execution of that same plan his sole study and business.

”Benjamin Franklin,

Autobiography , Chapter 7

written 1771 “1790

The best plan is only a plan, that is, good intentions, unless it degenerates into work.

”Peter Drucker

Management: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices .

New York: Harper & Row. 1974, p. 128.

In the previous chapters, we developed a modernization strategy for RSS. However, this modernization plan represents an idealized process based on technical considerations. The plan is aimed at minimizing development costs ”number of adapters, scope of understanding required ”and mapping size , based on lines of COBOL, to a schedule. However, other business drivers must be reconciled with the technical plans. These drivers may require reprioritizing business objects to field them earlier. In this chapter, we reconcile cost with stakeholder needs.