Patterns of Legacy Displacement

> A third key factor in several of the failures was the desire for Feature Parity with the existing set of systems and business processes. These attempts began by promising to give the business exactly what they had today with somehow, behind the covers, the technology having been "improved".

I'm surrounded by legacy systems, and have experienced the above almost every single time.

It's remarkable how strongly groups of people can dread change to the point that they insist any replacement must be as close to the status quo as possible. This dread of change can approach Stockholm Syndrome-like levels of denial of the deficiencies of said status quo, to the point where you can't even question it.

Granted, this is anecdata, but in my personal experience, legacy displacement have primarily always been "people" problems rather then technical ones.

Very good article. I have seen several modernization programs taking way too long because of a much too large scope. Making it smaller gives one the ability to adjust goals while one is going and, most importantly, one can keep delivering software.

What I do wonder about when I see the author list is whether everybody at Thoughtworks is a 'Technical Director'.....