In a fast-paced technology environment, organisations are striving to stay ahead through continuous application modernisation action plans and processes meant to constantly improve the legacy system and ensure a smooth transition to a much better tech foundation.  

A common concern organisations have before embarking on an application modernisation project is quantifying the value such a project would bring. It's a well-founded concern because, without an exhaustive look into your legacy system's current limitations and the desired business outcomes, it's difficult to chart the best path forward. Here’s our suggestion. 

As the app modernisation process is continuous and requires constant attention, an initial and important step in the process should be a discovery and assessment phase, based on collaborative sessions meant to create a baseline for the complex app modernisation initiative. We call this phase the Application Modernisation Discovery and Assessment. 

Conducting this comprehensive analysis of the current system functionalities collaboratively helps our specialists gather an in-depth evaluation of the application architecture and helps with alignments towards expected modernisation efforts.  

Discovery and Assessment Benefits 

The process's main benefit is ensuring a tailored modernisation plan that addresses specific pain points and aligns with the company's goals.  As the modernisation process begins with an assessment of the existing system and infrastructure, it is crucial to understand its utility.  

This initial step ensures that existing system documentation is up-to-date and the volumes of information regarding legacy features or performance data are visible.  

Therefore, the Application Modernisation Discovery and Assessment phase ensures the in-depth document review, cross-team collaboration, and data collection process of the existing documentation related to the system are correctly identified. This crucial step helps our professionals recommend the best approach for the continuous app modernisation process and healthy collaboration between teams based on communication and shared knowledge.    

The Application Modernisation Discovery and Assessment Approach 

To better understand the initial phase in the application modernisation approach, we summarised the steps our experts take to reach a satisfactory conclusion regarding existent data, review the current system features successfully, and create a forward plan. 

Objectives & Scope 

The initial step of the entire phase refers to recognising the objectives and scope of the future actions considered for application modernisation purposes. 

Therefore, in this step, the objectives of app modernisation will be clarified, and the scope will be defined, including details about the systems or necessary components. Through this in-depth approach, our team will be able to understand the current state of the legacy system, identify pain points, and opportunities for business development. 

Stakeholder interview 

Diving deeper into the Discovery and Assessment phase, we’ll reach the second action point: stakeholder interviews.  

This is when our professionals conduct interviews with key stakeholders, such as business leaders, IT staff, or even end-users, to select valuable information, insights, pain points, or expectations for future growth. This is another key step in our Discovery and Assessment phase that helps us create an overview of the existing approach, the current state of the system according to stakeholders, and the team’s expectations for further development. 

Current System Documentation 

The third step in our in-depth assessment analysis refers to collecting core documentation, that is crucial to further system development. During this step, our professionals will gather architecture diagrams, data models, or user manuals with the common purpose of building a system that fits better to the organisation’s needs. 

The gathered data and documentation will be reviewed for accuracy and completeness.  

Data Collection 

Exploring further, we’ll mention data collection as the next step in our in-depth analysis approach. How is this step different from current system documentation?  

This point in the Application Modernisation Discovery and Assessment Approach refers to gathering relevant data about the system's performance, usage patterns, and resources. This is where our professionals analyse logs, error reports, and historical data to identify recurring issues that can be solved through app modenisation.  

Technical Assessment 

Another important step in the Discovery and Assessment phase for app modernisation is the Technical Assessment. During this step, our professionals evaluate the technology stack, including programming languages, frameworks, or infrastructure components.  

This helps developers understand the compatibility of current systems with modern technologies that might be proposed further.  

Functional Assessment 

Great functionality is one of our core requirements when it comes to app modernisation, which is why the functional assessment is the next step considered in our approach. 

This assessment allows experts to analyse the functionality of existing systems and their alignment with current business processes. This way, the areas where the system’s performance may be outdated are identified and the potential risks are reduced.  

Security and Compliance Assessment 

Ensuring system security and compliance are one of the key actions we follow closely in our application modernisation approach. We value high security and are interested in correctly analysing the existent steps towards implementing it. 

The security and compliance assessment analyses the security posture of the current system, including vulnerabilities and compliance with industry standards. This step is meant to identify potential security risks and reduce them through regulations. 

Performance Analysis 

Discovering our approach further, we chose to conduct a performance analysis to observe new ways of improving and collect valuable information about the current asset usage. 

The performance analysis measures the system's performance, including response times and resource utilisation. This step in the assessment process identifies performance bottlenecks and potential areas of improvement.  

Risk Assessment 

In close collaboration with the performance analysis, we identify another step in our Application Modernisation Discovery and Assessment Approach, the risk assessment.  

This type of assessment refers to an in-depth analysis of the potential liabilities or challenges associated with application modernisation. Secondly, this assessment helps in prioritising actions based on how high or low the risks are.   

Cost Estimation 

After the complete analysis of the system and its environment, the cost estimation represents a key factor meant to estimate the financial efforts of application modernisation, including the development process, testing, migration, and other necessary infrastructure upgrades.  

For this step in the Modernisation Discovery and Assessment Approach, our professionals will prepare a budgetary estimate for the entire project for full financial transparency. 

Feasibility Study 

Analysing the long-term goals of the company is a key component worth mentioning in our Discovery and Assessment phase. Ensuring the app modernisation goals align smoothly with the organisation's ambitions for the future is a critical element that we discuss in the feasibility study. 

Through this step, experts determine the viability of modernisation based on technical, financial, and organisational aspects. Long-term objectives are considered for this aspect as well as the alignment of the modernisation techniques with the current legacy system.  

Gap analysis  

Highlighting areas that can be improved through modernisation, by building a bridge over gaps in the system is part of our heritage as a business and this is also something our professionals will focus on, during the gap analysis step. 

Our experts will identify gaps between the current state and the desired state of the system and propose new ways of working, which align with organisation’s expectations and values.  

Business Case Development  

One of the final steps in the Application Modernisation Discovery and Assessment is the business case development, which refers to creating a compelling case for why modernisation is necessary for the organisation. During the business case development phase, our experts will create a document that outlines the benefits of app modernisation, ROI, and strategic advantages that come together with the modernisation actions. 

Preliminary Recommendations 

Up to this point, our experts provided and gathered the necessary information to form an opinion about the legacy system of the organisation in question. During the preliminary phase, our team will provide alternative solutions, incremental updates that need to be considered, and other valuable feedback gathered by this point.  

The preliminary recommendations are not final and focus mainly on the future implementation process, whether that includes a full modernisation approach or a partial one. 

Report Generation 

To outline the findings regarding the app modernisation initiatives and recommend valuable changes, updates, and improvements, our experts will provide an in-depth report. The document will compile findings and assessment results into a comprehensive report. 

The report generation document will be accessible to all relevant stakeholders and will represent a core asset to consult before committing to any system changes.  

Stakeholder Review and Feedback  

The final step in our Application Modernisation Discovery and Assessment is to share the report created in the previous step with relevant stakeholders. 

After our experts develop the documentation regarding system improvement and app modernisation techniques tailored specifically to the organisation’s goals, the team will share the assessment report with stakeholders for review and feedback.  

This is the end of the first phase of the application modernisation approach, which will be followed in a second article by the second phase, Redesign. 

Why work with Accesa  

We understand the challenges faced by businesses as they outgrow legacy applications and require software updates that deliver value. Our company has 20 years of experience with turning business challenges into opportunities for major brands. 

Through modernisation assessment sessions and in-depth analysis, we, as industry experts, demonstrate increased performance and interest in quality development processes. 

Our goal is to deliver the best solutions tailored to specific company goals and help leaders experience growth through the successful development of legacy applications. 

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