Each technology is on its own product lifecycle, which may or may not match with your organization’s business and development lifecycles. In particular, there are certain cycle mismatch patterns that commonly occur in organizations looking to adopt new technologies. I’ve labeled four such mismatch patterns: firefly, underdone, conveyer belt, and landfill. Each is worth examining.

Go read the whole thing.  ..bruce..

The other day, an IT colleague of mine mentioned a conflict at a corporation where he’s working. The corporation has a mission-critical application deployed across a large number of workstations. The set of corporate employees who use this application largely use it and nothing else all day long at dedicated workstations. The application they are using is a customized third-party application; however, the firm has been having chronic problems with this app (let’s call it “QRSApp”), and so is looking at different solutions. The firm could continue to make changes to QRSApp to fix their problems. The firm could switch to a different third-party application; several other vendors market applications of this type within this firm’s industry. Or, as a senior IT manager now wants to do, the firm could develop a completely custom and private application to replace QRSApp, so that the firm has complete control over it.

The question: which solution is best?

Comments welcome here or there.  ..bruce..

Sorry for the lack of postings here; I’ve actually been busy with various engagements this past month, and have been traveling heavily as well.  ..bruce..