The Desperate Project Manager’s Kit (DPMK)
I was reading Jurgen's blog about scrum projects and again saw these issues:
1) Not following a business-driven approach to goals and priorities
2) Not delivering real value early and often
In aXes/RAMP application modernization projects I refer to these two items as BV (Business Value).
I think there is evidence that many IBM i software developers nowadays just don’t get what BV is about - or they don’t care – or they have forgotten. They just don’t recognize BV as being the most important thing in IT - especially in application modernization projects.
Modernization project managers must be getting made pretty desperate about this issue.
I decided to try and help by making a DPMK (Desperate Project Manager's Kit).
The DPMK has 3 key components:
A Stapler |
 |
Some Post-It Notes |
 |
The Project Team Foreheads |
 |
The DPMK usage guidelines are very simple …..
Continue reading “The Desperate Project Manager’s Kit (DPMK)” »
LANSA Managed Application Services
The cost effective way to reengineer, modernize & transform your IBM i applications allowing IT to help & grow your business.
The IBM i (AS/400, iSeries, Power systems) user base is now facing new challenges and threats based on the longevity of the platform and the age and maturity of many of the key applications which typically are the primary LOB (line of business) applications in use today. In summary – “it’s all getting very old, tired and dated”.
Many IBM i IT managers tell us that they are overwhelmed by the sheer volume of the applications they have to maintain and that the problem is further compounded by an aging and diminishing developer base available with the skills required.
IT management is rightly being questioned on the future of the platform (specifically OS/400) and, more importantly, on their ability to reengineer and modify the business applications to meet modern day standards, as well as their ability to bring innovation and agility to support and improve business process evolution and improvement. Some of the key risks and concerns that exist today can be summarized as follows… Continue reading “LANSA Managed Application Services” »
Scrum Project Management Approach
So you convinced your management to give you money for your modernization project? Now you will need to deliver! How do you make this happen?
When you read the article written by Paul Conte about the 'Top 10 reasons application modernization projects fail' you see that four out of the ten reasons for failure have to do with the way the project is managed, I quote:
1) Not following a business-driven approach to goals and priorities
2) Not delivering real value early and often
3) Not using an iterative and incremental project structure
4) Not getting the right people on the bus and in their right seats
My experience is that the Scrum management approach is a good project methodology to help you deal with these challenges.
Top Ten Reasons Application Modernization Projects Fail
Guest Blogger: Paul Conte, President PCES, is a leading Application Development Strategist.
Are we done yet? With “modernizing” our applications, that is?
It seems so long ago that someone came up with the clever concept of application “modernization” as a response to how outdated AS/400 applications looked by comparison with graphical Windows applications.
But now, even after years of screen-scraping, “refacing” and crash courses in Java, there still exists an unfathomable mountain of monolithic RPG applications that – dolled up or not – simply don’t serve modern business needs.
Why have so many attempts at “modernization” failed to deliver? Herewith are my own “top ten” reasons, listed somewhat in the order I’ve seen them occur in many IBM i organizations:
Continue reading “Top Ten Reasons Application Modernization Projects Fail” »
Risk, Innovation and Cost Considerations
In the current economic climate we’re all being asked to go back to our parents generation and ‘make do and mend’. Even with the supposed green shoots of recovery being discussed by our political leaders, it’s hard to see how the large capital expenditure projects from 5 years ago will get funded today. So even though the competitive landscape will relentlessly move on, the idea of replacing all your business applications as part of a strategic plan will probably fall on deaf ears. I still remember an ex-manager of mine saying that every time I said “strategic project funding”, to him it just meant that it was going to cost the company money.
For most companies their applications and systems do an OK job of running the business. They probably have done so for the past 10-15 years as they’ve been customised to suit your bespoke business processes. The problem today is delivering that next 10% - 15% of functionality required to get the business back to being market leading again.
Continue reading “Risk, Innovation and Cost Considerations” »