How to stop building tomorrow’s legacy systems
We still make legacy software
The DevOps revolution has reshaped how we build systems — making it easier than ever to build and deploy software. Quickly releasing new software and ensuring that it can scale to meet demands has become almost commodotised. We have better processes in place to track and manage work, as well as to integrate these processes into how we build software.
But even with all the advancements of DevOps, familiar problems remain. Strict adherence to a software-only lens sees our teams continue to work in silos, isolated by the very systems meant to bring them together. So despite the many benefits that DevOps has brought us, why are there still so many legacy systems and what can we do to stop building more of it?
No one sets out to build a legacy system, so how does it happen so often? How is it that so many organisations across so many industries across the globe have ended up there? How does a team with the best intentions, end up with a legacy system — the silent adversary of innovation and growth?
How do you know that you and your team aren’t creating tomorrow’s legacy right now?
The Promised Land: Agile, Adaptive, Achievable
Let’s imagine a future together, a utopia where systems never grow old — they evolve. What would that look like?
Well, given how important data is to any organisation’s strategy, we’d probably have a single source-of-truth of what our business data means and how it’s structured. We would have a good handle on who is using it and why, as well as knowing exactly what people can do with it. We would have good data standards in place so that we knew our data was interoperable across the whole enterprise — making sure that everyone, everywhere could harness it to its fullest potential.
Our systems would continually improve, allowing us to incrementally make modifications or change the underlying technology, but without causing undue impacts on our other systems. They would be like islands — self-sufficient, yet part of the greater whole, able to adapt without sending shockwaves through the rest of our digital landscape. They would react to their environment, so that when important events occur with our clients or data, our systems detect it and take appropriate action.
Underpinning all of this would definitely have to be a collaborative culture between business and technology; and they would work hand-in-hand together using tools that enable cross-functional cooperation. Business functionality would easily and quickly be able to be unbundled and re-bundled in different ways to suit changes in customer demand and business opportunities.
We’d need those tools to follow the DevOps spirit of promoting an environment of rapid but controlled change. But their scope would have to grow from just helping to build software to rapidly trying out new designs for the whole enterprise. We could then see how these tools all work together to get the most out of our data. It would be clear what was going to be impacted when changes were made, and we would be confident that things wouldn’t break.
Putting that all together, it feels like this utopia would allow us to quickly and efficiently keep pace with market changes and business demands. It would truly make the enterprise driven by our data and that sounds like a pretty good anti-legacy vision.
The Present Landscape: In the Shadows of Giants
Yet, the journey to this utopia is riddled with familiar and formidable foes: legacy systems and the processes that create them. Monolithic structures that were once a sign of market strength and dominance, now haunt us as impassable barriers on the road to agility. Siloed departments juggle their disparate data, struggling to grasp common meaning. Paths towards an integrated and connected enterprise feel like labyrinths littered with traps. The promise of a consistent customer experience remains elusive — fragmented by the very data and systems that we’ve built trying to enhance it.
Despite being clearly marked and incredibly well trodden, we constantly take the wrong turns, getting turned around an heading right back towards creating more legacy:
- Inefficient Collaboration and Limited Feedback Mechanisms
Siloed teams lead to disjointed solutions. Without a collaborative environment that is usable by business and IT, it’s difficult to know where you are right now, let alone where you’re going. - Fragmented Data Governance and Inconsistent Standards
Without standardised practices and a single-source-of-truth, your data has become inconsistent and unreliable. - Poor Adaptation to Business Changes due to Difficulty in Integrating Disparate Systems
Traditional siloed approaches to data and system design methods can be rigid, making it hard to adapt to changing business requirements, which only gets worse when you need to integrate with multiple incompatible systems. - Slow Time-to-Market caused by Cumbersome Change Management
Even with agile principles, making wide-spread change across multiple systems takes time. Lengthy design/development cycles and impacts of tightly-coupled systems delay your product enhancements and new initiatives.
So at the starting point of a new IT project or initiative, if you haven’t mapped a route around the above roadblocks, there’s a good chance that you’re about to join the club of people building tomorrow’s legacy systems.
On the bright side at least you won’t be alone, it’s a very popular club.
New members join every day.
But you don’t have to.
The Journey Forward: Charting the Course to Utopia
How do we navigate our way to this utopia? How do we ensure that the path we make today doesn’t lead us into the dense forests of tomorrow’s legacy systems? The key lies in a paradigm shift — a move away from the fragmented and the rigid, towards the unified and the fluid. What if there was a way to not just dream of this utopia but to actually build it, piece by piece, with every decision and every innovation? This is where we introduce the pathfinder in your expedition towards transformation — not some mythical hero, but a trusted local guide: Jargon.
It is the embodiment of the DevOps spirit, not confined to software but extended to encompass the data and systems your business needs. Offering more than just a map to this promised utopia, it offers a way to construct the very roads that lead there. With Jargon, your teams are equipped to build systems that are inherently designed to evolve, helping them lay down the foundations with agility embedded at their core:
- Collaborative Culture and Feedback Loop
Jargon breaks down the walls between business and IT, fostering a culture where collaboration is the norm. It creates a feedback-rich environment where every voice is heard and every action is informed. - Distributed Data Governance with Consistency
No more data anarchy. Jargon establishes a centralised repository of both your data and your systems, which evolve with you in real-time, reflecting the true current state of your enterprise. Individual domains are free to use the expressive language of their business problems, whilst being traceable back to a versioned central core. No more discrepancies, no more conflicts — just one reliable source that everyone can trust and which is managed by the teams who know best. - Decoupled, Yet Connected
The architecture Jargon helps you create is one of loose coupling but tight integration. Systems are designed to interact seamlessly while maintaining their autonomy, ensuring that changes in one don’t spell disaster for others. - Accelerated Delivery
Time-to-market becomes a competitive edge with Jargon. It streamlines change management, making agile not just an aspiration but a reality that propels your business forward with confidence and speed. - Controlled Change, Uncontrolled Innovation
In the spirit of DevOps, Jargon promotes rapid yet controlled changes. It enables an environment where experimentation is encouraged, impact is assessed and innovation is constant. With Jargon, your enterprise can pivot with purpose, ensuring that the solutions of today don’t become the barriers of tomorrow.
Jargon can help you reach our shared vision of utopia — a world that extends beyond software development into the realm of enterprise design. Where rapid prototyping of business models isn’t just possible; it’s routine. And when change beckons, you know its impact before it’s felt, navigating new waters with the confidence of the well-prepared and well-rehearsed.
This is your chance to opt out of joining the club of people building unintentional legacy, and actively shape a future-proof enterprise.
Jargon: Your Invitation to Innovate
The journey to a world beyond the limitations of legacy systems begins with a single, bold step. It’s a path we at Jargon are committed to treading, not just as pioneers but as partners to every business ready to embrace change.
We understand the gravity of the legacy challenge — a challenge that stifles innovation, hampers growth and clouds your organisation’s future. It’s a challenge we care about deeply, so much so that we’ve dedicated our expertise and passion to addressing it head-on.
Jargon is more than just our solution; it’s our invitation to you. An invitation to join forces in redefining what enterprise systems can and should be. An invitation to build a legacy of innovation, not of constraints.
In this spirit, to all who share our vision of making legacy systems a relic of the past, we’re giving everyone the chance to try Jargon for free. We believe that together, we can forge a new standard for enterprise and integration architecture — one that is as resilient and dynamic as the businesses they support.
Join us on this transformative journey. With Jargon, let’s turn the page on outdated systems and step into a future where our digital infrastructure propels us forward, unencumbered by the past.
Together, let’s build systems that never grow old and redefine what it means to leave behind a legacy in the IT industry.
