5 Application Modernization Considerations

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Application modernization is a core element of successful digital transformation in any organization. And, every modernization project has specific business and technology objectives that need to be considered.

Modernization: Improve technology productivity, performance, and velocity to enable growth and the ability of the enterprise to compete and thrive.

5 Application Modernization Considerations

When planning a modernization project, define your project goals and anticipate what success will look like and how it will be measured. You and your team should contemplate the following: 

1.    What application priorities are critical?

  • Scalability

  • Capacity

  • Availability

  • Reliability

  • Recoverability

  • Maintainability

  • Serviceability

  • Manageability

  • Environmental

  • Interoperability

  • Security

  • Regulatory

Competing challenges can be difficult if taken all at once. Determining the criticality of each focus area and the value of the anticipated result will help the tech organization give precedence to specific modernization goals and direction.

2.    What do your customers need and want most? Technical modernization efforts can be an exciting and rewarding direction for the software team. However, equally or perhaps most important is to keep your customer top of mind. Remember that an overengineered solution that isn’t valuable to the consumer is simply a new shiny object without usefulness.

3.    What are the functional requirements? In modernization efforts, functional and business requirements should both be contemplated. The engagement represents an opportunity to incorporate, or redesign to better support, all requirements that were otherwise difficult to accomplish.

4.    How can security be improved? Any project worthy of a technical overhaul is likely using older, perhaps outdated, security standards and elements. This is a great opportunity to improve your projects security, reduce liability and risk, and assure your customers that best-in-class data protection approaches are in place.

5.    What other aspects of modernization need to incorporated? Evaluate your 3rd party integrations, infrastructure/hardware, tooling, and development process. Upgrading specific components, changing OS, incorporating new tools, or implementing other changes may introduce unnecessary risk. Identifying these and other opportunities early will help prioritize needs and features while minimizing downstream implications.

Technology teams who focus on continuous improvement and currency of technologies are most effective in delivering business results for the enterprise. Employ agile methodologies to deliver modernization outcomes, and allow for some flexibility in schedule, application of resources, agreed upon scope, or a combination of the three, to ensure the success of the project.

Russ Harding