The Business of Legacy – Making Software Change Successful

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Hello, I'm Richard Bown and welcome to the Loving

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Legacy Podcast, episode 30.

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This is your regular dose of discussion that helps you pick the path between

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complex human systems and the accompanying complex software systems.

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This time I'm talking about the business of legacy, or how the world's leading

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companies make software change successful over the last year in an effort to make

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more sense of the world of building commercial and enterprise software.

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I've talked to lots of people.

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I've been reading a lot of newer and older books that speak about software

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delivery, business efficiency systems, product processes, and organization.

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These all give a perspective on the human aspect of business delivery

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systems, which is now, of course, pretty much software systems delivery.

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Business delivery can be something.

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Like a production line for a manufacturing company or a system that provides direct

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value to an end user, say a website for a retailer or perhaps a business to business

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system that allows better integration and eventually leads to downstream

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sales or savings or an opportunity.

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Wherever systems are built these days, they are partly software,

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partly IT change and partly social.

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So what is the secret glue that holds successful tech companies together

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and lets them succeed with it and software delivery where others fail?

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This is what I want to understand today.

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If you read any of the great books out there, like Accelerate or Team to

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Apologies or the Value Flywheel Effects, They will all give you case studies and

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there must have been millions, if not billions, maybe of words written on the

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subject, let alone talked about by now.

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So none of this stuff is really secret.

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It's just complicated.

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It's out there, but it's hard to get to the, the bit that you need to understand

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in order to go forward with your business.

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From what I can see, there is no secret to success in software

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change for your business.

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You need to be clear, consistent, pragmatic.

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You need to be bold, but also bold enough to know when to pivot.

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The way I've boiled it down is a bit like this.

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There is a process you can follow to make any businesses a success,

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but you also need to be able to react to changing circumstances.

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And then you also always need a little bit of luck on your.

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These are some of the lessons already distilled from the biggest and the

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best companies on the planet, the ones that run the big supply chains, the big

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manufacturers, the digital exchanges, the ones who make a lot of the money,

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the essence of modern businesses.

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This, how quickly can your systems react and anticipate

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to changing market conditions?

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How reliable are they?

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How resilient are they?

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How secure are they and how do we make software change successful

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while doing all these things?

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What can we learn about existing best practices and the experience and stories

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of hundreds and thousands of engineers that have gone before and more than that

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with so much information and best practice out there, how do you make sense of it

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all and know what to do and when I would.

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All of this starts with learning.

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You need to have a baseline of knowledge to understand how to work with IT

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systems and software together with Legacy in the modern enterprise or

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in the modern startup because none of us working in any company of any size

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lives in a world free of legacy systems.

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All systems are ones which we'll need to do something about

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at some time in the future.

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So how can we learn to love our systems and how can we learn to live with them?

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My approach, the approach I've always taken is to keep learning.

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And the best way to keep learning is to keep asking questions.

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Almost anyone can manage IT and software delivery but the best always

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ask what appear to be on the surface, the most obscure, unrelated, or

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perhaps downright stupid questions.

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When I start a new job, I learn by listening, by reading, by starting to ask

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questions to everybody that is around me.

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And then also I start to question some of the assumptions I'm making when

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I'm exposed to the way things work.

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Before you can ask the right stupid questions you need

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to know what you don't know.

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You need a framework for something to put your knowledge upon.

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Therefore, it helps if you have a decent, wide base of technical

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knowledge before you start asking the questions in the first place.

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Especially if you're talking to technical people.

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That replies you're gonna get are usually going to be technical in nature

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and they might be quite wide ranging.

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Learning a technical discipline and reading around that subject

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will help you talk to the techies.

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Secondly, you need to learn the domain that you're working in.

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The business does something to make its money.

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And now this is your primary concern.

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Make sure you spend as much time as you can learning about the intricacies

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of the business from the people who are closest to the customer.

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These are the people who will have discovered all the friction with

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the existing systems and are the most invested in making a new system

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that works better than the old one.

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So find the rough spots.

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Be an ear to those who are upset or disaffected or annoyed by how

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things are going now, and use their knowledge to inform your opinion.

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Thirdly, try to model something.

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Use the knowledge of the system, the knowledge that you've gained from the

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people you've spoken to in the business.

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User knowledge or reactions of the customers you have contact

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with to play with some idea.

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You can run these out as questions to begin with.

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What would happen, for example, if we didn't have a system here, or we

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did this manually, or we automated this piece of work, how do you

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think that would change anything?

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You can also do modeling in your head or modeling on paper to understand

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better and analyze a situation.

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Finally, when you have a solution, get confirmation that what you want

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to try is the right next thing to do.

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Make sure that you get technical, functional, and business buy-in, and that

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everyone is aligned to accept this change.

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At that point, no matter what the size or the shape of the system or the solution

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you're proposing, you'll be in a position to potentially deliver something that

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might make a difference to the business.

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But don't leave that to chance.

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Don't leave the.

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To chance, try as closely as you can to track the course of this work in

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order to show what you have achieved.

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It's not enough sometimes to sweat away tirelessly working on a solution

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which no one is interested in.

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Likewise, it's no good making projections based on little knowledge of the

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technical or functional landscape.

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Ensuring that you have listened and understood is a priority.

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Then show how change can work for everyone and finally, show the results.

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All of this is a learning path to a successful software change.

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Whether you are a dedicated staffer, a consultant, an external

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contractor, it doesn't matter what your investment is in the firm you

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work for, you are working together to make the business more successful.

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Therefore, it is not your change, it is the business'

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change, it is everybody's change.

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This is a mindset that asks questions to find out what people

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know and what people don't know.

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When you get people to confront what they know and what they don't

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know, they sometimes think long and hard about what they're doing

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and why it's good to make a change.

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So as a starting point, how do you know what to do and how do

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you know what you don't know?

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And how do you know what is the best next thing to do to make a change?

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This very much depends on your journey.

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Very much depends on your knowledge and where you're

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starting from with the business.

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For example, you may be technically capable but unsure

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where the actual pain is.

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As a techie, you might want to feel that you're working on something

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that is delivering business value.

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As a manager, you are closer to the business impact of changes.

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So your responsibility is to help show this impact to everyone you work.

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I've put together a map of the best books that I feel contribute to

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this area, and I've also created a suggested path, which will help you

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navigate these books or navigate this knowledge in a way that depends on the

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context which you're starting from.

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The books are as follows, and I'll link this in the show notes.

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Domain driven, designed by Eric Evans, also known as the Blue Book, test

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Driven Development by example, by Kent Beck ,Out of the Crisis by w Edwards.

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The Phoenix Project and The Unicorn Project by jean Kim, and others, Team

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Topologies by Matthew Skelton and Manual Pais ,The Goal by Eli Goldratt,

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Crossing the Chasm by Jeffrey Moore.

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Working effectively with Legacy Code by Michael Feathers,

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obviously awesome by April Dunford.

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Accelerate by Nicole Forsgren, Jess, humble and Gene Kim.

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The Value Flywheel Effect by David Anderson et al and the DevOps Handbook by

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some other names I've already mentioned.

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These are mainly software related books at various levels of scale, from

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architecture to delivery, approach to team, and organizational concerns.

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Additionally, there are two business process related books,

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the Goal and Outta the Crisis.

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The goal in particular, has influenced many of the things that we do day to day

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now books such as The Phoenix Project, which was very much a peon to that book.

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Very much a tribute to that book.

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Plus I've also included two product related books in crossing

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the Chasm and obviously awesome.

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You can't afford to ignore product development as part of

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software development these days.

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I would argue that having a nodding reference to all of these books would

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give a great view of software product development and product delivery in 2023.

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Additionally, depending on your context, whether you are struggling

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with legacy systems, technical debt, too much bureaucracy or that you

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just lack an idea where to start.

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Then look at the diagram in the link that I've included and follow the arrows.

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From that perspective, this will give you a context and a way forward.

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I hope you've found this useful today.

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I've been trying to work some context into the reading that

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I've been doing, and as I work.

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Interactions with clients.

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I also see that the ideas and lots of these books can be

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useful at certain points in time.

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However, your context will always differ, and if you read any of these books, it

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will say that very clearly in all of them.

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Your individual context is something that you need to be aware of.

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So by finding your context, finding out where you are starting, then

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you can start to approach tackling.

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Any particular challenge that you have with software deployment in a real life

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situation, software deployment in a real life situation is always inevitably

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going to involve a legacy system or is going to involve a legacy decision that

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you've made on a previous deployment.

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Therefore, it is essential to be able to understand the full

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context in order to move forward.

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I hope you find.

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This list useful.

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I hope you find this episode useful.

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Thank you for joining me.

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My name's Richard Bown.

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This has been The Loving Legacy Podcast.