Why upgrade, why not replace?

Like it or not, it's not as easy to replace an old system as you might think, because:

• You don't know the specification
• Probably there's no specification
• The live system must be maintained during the new one's development phase
• So you can't assign your existing team to the new project

Can't I replace?

Yes, you can, but there will be challenges:

• You'll need more workforce until the old system is discontinued
• You'll need a very detailed specification for what exactly your system should do and how (which is often not known by anyone in the company)

When to replace?

• You have endless money to spend
• You can't attract talented developers anymore with the old project
  • Developers like to play with fancy technologies
  • You want to attract talent with new technologies
• The old system has too serious flaws to fix
• New features would be too hard or impossible to implement in it
• New UI/design would be too hard or impossible to implement in it

When to upgrade?

• Flaws with the system are not that fatal
  • You still can hire good developers for it
  • Your customers / clients / employees like it
  • No bigger changes are necessary; you are generally happy with the system
• You only need to add a small feature or bug fix occasionally and the system doesn't prevent it
• You don't have the resources necessary to build a new system from scratch
• You don't have and can't really get the precise specification for the old or the new system

How to upgrade, how to replace?

Read it in our next article.