A full rebuild — how do you know it’s time?

1. A full rebuild —how do you know it’s time? At a certain point in any software product’s lifecycle, the question has to be asked: Is it time for a full rebuild of our software? It may not be in a month or a year or 5 years… but eventually, the question has to be asked. No software product exists in its original form indefinitely. At some point in time, a major code refactor and/or full rebuild occurred (even if the software carries the same name). It’s a daunting prospect, but one that every company has to face at some point. So, we put together a list of questions to help you evaluate whether your product’s time has come… Now, a yes to any one of these doesn’t mean you shouldn’t necessarily kick off a full rebuild right this second. Rather, it’s a framework for thinking about your software’s lifecycle. We want you asking the right questions and understanding what the implications might be if you’re answering “yes” to too many of these. Are you spending more time trying to keep your system running and maintained than you are building new, valuable features or improving the product? A good rule of thumb: 20% of budget time/resources should go toward maintaining a product and 80% should go to adding value to the product. If you’re not there or if your time/resource usage is inverted from that, it may be time to rebuild.

2. Are you unable to add new features or integrations? This is a pretty simple one, and usually means the rebuild needs to happen pronto. Are there new features or integrations you’d like to add to your software but simply can’t because that feature or integration isn’t supported by your existing codebase or language? This usually means the prevailing technology has passed you by. If you’re unable to add valuable functions or integrations because your tech is too antiquated to be supported, a rebuild is almost certainly in order. Do you have a baseline fear of altering live code for fear of something breaking? If this sounds familiar, you may need to rethink some things: when you fix one bug or problem, make one change, it creates another issue elsewhere. Is your dev team playing whack-a-mole with issues? Every time they resolve something, another one crops. This means, at a base level, your software is unstable. And if that’s the case, you guessed it, a rebuild might be the way to go. Is it slow & expensive to update or maintain your code? This usually happens when your solution is built on an outdated coding language or platform. It goes something like this: • Finding coders still fluent in that language is difficult • If you do find them, they’re expensive. Their skillset is now considered “niche” • Because it’s old code,andyou have limited resources who can work on it, it’ll take a long time to implement even if you do invest the time and money into it The bottom line Like I said in the intro, it’s not a death sentence if you said yes to any specific one of these questions. But if you’re seeing a theme developing across them, it may be time to consider asking some questions. Full rebuilds can be a beast. It takes time, resources, money… We get it. We don’t recommend it lightly, and certainly not before we get a full picture of what’s under the hood. That’s why our Innovation Lab is such an important step whenever we talk with a company that’s considering a rebuild. It’s soooo important to gain a deep understanding of the client’s pain points, their customers’ needs/wants, the resource allocation required, investment that’ll be needed, etc., before you do anything as drastic as a full rebuild. For More info Visit- https://www.eno8.com/