Let’s try and imagine the following situation: a hypothetical company (let’s call it “Company A”) developed a hypothetical system — let it be “Super Software” *. The system turned out to be a successful commercial project, Company A began growing. But in the process it became clear that new features had to be developed for Super Software. Not all employees were happy with the system, but no one insisted on modifications, no improvements were made and the system kept going just as it was.
Until one day it crashed. A glitch occured and Super Software stopped functioning. The fix team, who were trying to revive it (however unsuccessfully), found out that there was no documentation and the system itself was long outdated. The executives blamed it on the software development manager first, but he explained that he had only 10 people in his team who were busy doing their own jobs and didn’t have time for writing documentation and modifying the legacy system.
In the end the dev team was reorganized, extra employees hired, Agile technologies implemented. But to no avail. Development speed dropped, new problems were arising everyday, overall performance left much to be desired…
And though this is a totally hypothetical situation, I am sure you are familiar with such stories or even dealt with similar problems personally.
Unfortunately, very few companies facing the same problem actually succeed in solving it. Don’t fight it, decide it, I say! Admitting you have a problem is the first step to fixing it and an essential part of the “healing” process.
From my own personal experience I have identified five signs which will tell you that you are dealing with poor quality software. Every single one of them poses a problem, but in combination they are a definite threat to your business.
So, you are in serious trouble, if:
1. Your system is slow, even though it’s running on fast modern computers
This is the most common and the most obvious sign, that “something is rotten in the state of Denmark”. Users get frustrated when performing routine operations in slow mode. For example if it takes more than 3 seconds to open a window — then “Houston, we’ve got a problem!”
Usually the reason for such performance issues is inefficient software architecture. Once I dealt with a project in which all system dictionaries were uploading to the client browser. Using inadequate business logic you are not only wasting your computing resources, but your employees’ time as well.
2. It takes more time than you can afford to add a new feature
Let’s say you asked your dev team to add a new input into the form. They promised to do it in two weeks, but in the end it took two months. You might accuse them of being lazybones, but in fact they have just spent two months fighting your system complexity. And even a new dev team you can hire to replace your old one won’t save the day in this case. No one can.
3. Hiring extra employees doesn’t help
So, you hire extra people hoping to get things done faster. Alas, in vain! In most cases new employees get stuck trying to learn your system and its architecture (or lack of it), which makes parallel development impossible.
4. No documentation / Only one person knows how the system works
Simple, comprehensible, easy-to-use documentation ensures high development speed and code quality. No documentation — no job done!
5. Managers don’t want to and new employees don’t know how to work with your system
Users never read manuals, you can’t change it, just deal with it. The only sensible option here will be engineering simple and efficient systems any user can work with, no / very little training required. Remember, if your system is difficult to comprehend, it destroys your users’ motivation and affects their performance.
And now let’s analyze the results of our little quiz.
- If you’ve answered “yes, that’s us” to just one of these problems we’ve discussed — congratulations, you are in no serious trouble! You can still avoid radical measures.
- If you are dealing with two or three problems from this list, it’s time you modified your development process and/or platform.
- More than three? Act immediately! Before it is too late.
In other words, if you have been waiting for a sign to change your IT system, this is it!
And if you’d like to discuss your options and let me help you choose the best possible platform, contact me directly on dmelnikov@optimajet.com.
*The events, characters and firms depicted in this article are fictitious. Any similarity to actual persons, living or dead, or to actual firms, is purely coincidental. =)
