Re-building the Product

In enterprise software domain many times organizations revamp the old systems or products. The idea generally is to make a system that is more usable, scalable and robust than the incumbent system/product. Still, many times when the new systems or products are released the user rejects the solution for reasons such as:

1.      The new system is not providing the same functionalities as the legacy system/product.

2.      The learning/adoption time is high so that users are not able to get things done in required time leading to dissatisfied customers.

3.      The newly developed system is complex.

While it is bit tough for users to get used to new system, the teams who are migrating older legacy system also face certain challenges while defining and designing new system that they need to address:

1.      As users have invested in old systems in terms of time and money the new system should try to minimize any losses in term of adopting a new system or implementing the new system.

2.      The current users expect the system to behave in a similar manner to the legacy system in terms of functionality and usability.

3.      The requirement definition gets biased to the legacy system. While designing new system requirements can follow the similar pattern of the legacy system leading to the development of a similar solution in new packaging.

Still, having a live system as reference can be useful for the product team in many ways, including:

1.      The requirement gathering becomes easier. Based on the current system the most used functionalities and user flows can be easily designed. Also, the old documentation can help in requirement definition and detailing.

2.      For the focus groups or consumer surveys, the knowledge gained from current system can be used for defining precise requirements.

3.      During brainstorming sessions, the data and information of current system can be a great starting point.

4.      The organization can speed up the go to market as

a.      Using the current system as a reference for testing

b.     There can be some reusable code/modules that can be used by the new system

Based on my experience the below approach can be applied for rebuilding the older products:

·        Define the requirements for the new system without taking into consideration specifications of the current system. If possible the requirements are gathered by someone who has not used the system.

·        Once the requirements are defined, those should be validated by comparing with the current system. Additionally, get inputs from the users regarding the system requirements.

·        The difference in the current system and user expectation should be defined properly and based on the analysis the feature set should be updated.

·        If the way the system going to be accessed is completely going to be changed. For e.g. the user used to provide inputs using codes or commands but now you are planning a menu based system. Provide an option to user enter code in the new system so that in case the user is struck they can still use the new system. Such functionalities can be removed over the period of time.

·        Try to build a mobile or web-based solution as it gets easier for the users to access the system, thereby making adoption faster.

·        The use case for the UAT should also be defined once the requirements are finalized and these should be vetted by the users, if possible.

·        The system can be developed in phase wise approach to ensure that the most important features are developed initially. Also, these features should also be mapped and tested against the current system.

Using below measures can help in faster adoption of the newly developed product:

·        Although the new system is live. Give options to the user to switch to legacy system for a month or so. This really helps users to evaluate the new system and old system. As the newly built system is better, the users would start using the new product.

·        Once you launch the product in the market make sure to have the training sessions. This really helps in user to understand the new product. Additionally, provide short videos or tutorials that are easily accessible by users.

Feel free to leave comments and share your thoughts!