Enterprise Initiatives

A few years back, many "experts" were telling us to build systems to last. Fast forward to 2007 and the message is clear: Build to Change!

In the age of the ever demanding users, requirements change quicker then the ink dries on your last requirements document. In the days of "Build to Last" we would anticipate every users' needs and build the "ultimate" solution so that we would not have to spend a fortune maintaining it. The end result, we built more stuff to maintain then we should have.

Taking the Build to Last approach is like buying your 4 year old adult clothes hoping that they grow into it. Technology is changing so rapidly you can't possibly anticipate user needs. Take the IPod for example. Do you think that you have purchased your last MP3 player when you bought your Nano? Did you realize that in 3-5 years a hard disk will be a thing of the past like my old 8-track player. 3-5 years from now you will be laughing about only being able to store 4000 songs on your IPod and you actually had to burn songs to disk instead of virtualizing them in memory. In fact, the only device you will carry will be a phone and it will be your debit card, MP3 player, mobile computer, and much more.

So, my point is, don't try to think too far out in the future because the future will be totally different. Build to Change and move towards a service oriented architecture. That way, when the technology changes, your business processes and rules can easily adapt to the new and emerging technologies of tomorrow.