Paradigm Shifting and The Herding of Legacy Elephants

CIOs in an earlier era used to be about efficient purchase and implementation of technology. This was great when people were mostly doing things by hand and almost every implementation was greenfield. A couple of decades ago, Banks were just discovering core banking, manufacturing was still learning to pronounce SAP and MIS reports still involved printers. Today, with most of the key pieces of technology needed to run a business already occupied by some incumbent system already, most CIOs deal with changes and upgrades and shifts and moves more frequently than implementations. 

The elephant in the room, of course, is legacy - that incumbent already sitting there (sometimes for a decade or more) chugging away in the service of the nation. Old, often slow and refuses to do many things but nevertheless producing some continuing output of value. I’m going to focus today’s rant on herding these elephants while shifting paradigms.

Any change in technology is really two changes - the engineering one to the system, and a cultural one to the people using the system. Today I’m going to focus on just two kinds of shifts - not the only kinds for sure, but in the CIO world, big and frequent enough to matter. Both these shifts are all about handling the old while adopting the new, which causes all kinds of extra challenges.

Those kinds are:

1. Heavy on engineering, light on new features - or what I call Buying the Tesla 

2. Core functionality the same, but lots of change in the user interface - or what I call Moving to Oklahoma 

Buying the Tesla

My 80yr old uncle (who lives in the USA) has always had a hard time when it comes to selling his old car and buying a new one. He holds on to each for at least 20 years, obsessing about giving up what he’s familiar with. Yet, when he does finally buy a new car (his newest is a Tesla, up from a 2005 Lexus of the cassette era) he actually finds it pretty easy to adapt. The engineering is all different and there are lots and lots of new exciting features, but the driving experience is not much different. This is, of course, by design - Teslas are deliberately made to look and feel like legacy cars, even down to the redundant engine compartment in front. It’s not that new an idea -  new is often made to feel like old to smoothen the adoption curve. 

A big tech upgrade is quite common in the CIO world - core system upgrade, cloud transformation, database major version upgrades, etc. Tech change in the plumbing is frequent (and becoming more so in the obsolescence by design era) while user needs change much less frequently. Improving the plumbing has all kinds of advantages (and is often an imperative) but users resent a learning curve just to remain where they are, still just getting from A to B.

Ironically, because of the way companies justify IT spends, the business case for most such transformations is made on the shoulders of magical end-user experience - leading to increased complexity, cost overruns, adoption issues and missed expectations all around. Do not fall into that trap where you’re buying a Tesla just because it supports Spotify. I have found that non-techies also appreciate the benefits of improved plumbing and are willing to give the CIO reasonable space and time for it. 

Here are my somewhat hatke suggestions. 

1. Justify, plan and execute the upgrade on its real value - better stability, maintainability and security - rather than on incidentals (new version has more features). This significantly increases your chances of success by maintaining everyone’s focus. 

2. UAT is a change killer, so find ways to minimise it by keeping as much of the core intact as possible. Like doors and steering and braking in a Tesla. I don’t mean do inadequate or incomplete UAT - but minimise the areas where UAT is needed at all. 

3. Coexists with other elephants. Changing everything at the same time is a recipe for disaster.

4. Enabling new features comes AFTER the engineering replacement is complete, not during. 

Moving to Oklahoma

Imagine you’re packing up your life in small town India - say Asansol where I’m from - and moving to small town Oklahoma. The core doesn’t change much - you’re a doctor or programmer or serial killer here, you can be the same thing there - but oh boy is everything so different! Washing dishes, buying shampoo, crossing the road, pretty much every aspect of daily life has to be relearned. It takes the average Indian a month before he braves a drive-in. 

CIOs lead this kind of change quite frequently (for example) from Office 365 to GSuite, SAP Financials to Oracle Financials, Workday to Peoplesoft, all  for many a reason - better pricing, vendor support, strategic direction and whatnot. Whatever the reason, at the same time, these are also opportunities to significantly reengineer workflows and business processes. When in Oklahoma, you don’t go to Costco and shop like you used to in Tejani Stores.

I have some hatke suggestions here too:

1. Forget what you used to do. Nostalgia is poison for change, all rosy past and forgotten tragedy - no new system can compete. Approach users offering a totally new system, as if the elephant did not exist in the room at all. What’s the point of harping on about Asansol after you’ve moved to Oklahoma?

2. Training, training, training - preferably long before the new system goes live. The more people play around with the new system - tabletop, prototype, pre-release, alpha, beta - get the new system in front of users repeatedly and often. Sounds like obvious advice, but is rarely done - people tend to wait for the final production rollout before letting any user touch it. 

3. Don’t do all work and no play. Adoption is not always about boring SOPs and formal training; a bit of fun is extremely effective. Parties, contests, merchandise, general excitement with the user community for the new really kicks things into gear. Marketeers call this “activation” - even with trivial stuff such as t-shirts, smiley badges and pens, and I’ve had great success in large moves with this tactic. 

The Last Words

Big changes are going to happen. Recognising the incumbent elephants need to be herded out carefully but quickly is the way to success. Technology is not just about whizzy tricks, it’s also about being useful - which means people have to adopt it and use it well. Change is hard, but do it well and magic happens.