When I was a kid, maybe 5th or 6th grade, my family was driving out in the country and came upon a burning farmer's field.
We stopped to help, and my older brother and I were charged with keeping an eye on the smoking remains of a field that had already burned out. The adults, and my younger siblings, went to fight the actual fire.
By the time it was all over, my brother and I were both feeling slighted and sidelined. But as we got back to the car, my mother, may she rest in peace, told us how much responsibility we had been given, to be set such an important job, with no adult supervision, the farmer must have thought we were older than we really are.
Two points, I suppose. First, one doesn't always appreciate one's salient qualities. Second, 45+ years later, that episode still stands out in my memory for how rewarding it felt.
This brings to light the importance of managements messaging to the "legacy" and "Greenfield" teams.
Frequently the Greenfield project is purely political, or just a punt.. and has a 50-50 chance of successfully launching in a way that ever replaces legacy.
People lose sight of the fact that until the Greenfield thing launches, 100% of the revenue keeping the lights on comes from the legacy system. Keeping legacy alive and thriving is critically important both to the firm and also to give the Greenfield team runway to build the new solution. Even beyond the launch date, a sliding % of the revenue will continue to go through legacy, often the majority, and often for years.
The reality is you could fire the entire Greenfield team and continue as a going concern for 5 years. If your legacy system fails, your firm might miss payroll within a few months.
Most often I find management slaps unrealistic optimistic timelines on the Greenfield project, and continues to stick with them as the new thing fails to deliver. This both stresses out the Greenfield team to build a more corner cut solution.. while also causing mass attrition on the legacy team out of job risk concerns.
When I was a kid, maybe 5th or 6th grade, my family was driving out in the country and came upon a burning farmer's field.
We stopped to help, and my older brother and I were charged with keeping an eye on the smoking remains of a field that had already burned out. The adults, and my younger siblings, went to fight the actual fire.
By the time it was all over, my brother and I were both feeling slighted and sidelined. But as we got back to the car, my mother, may she rest in peace, told us how much responsibility we had been given, to be set such an important job, with no adult supervision, the farmer must have thought we were older than we really are.
Two points, I suppose. First, one doesn't always appreciate one's salient qualities. Second, 45+ years later, that episode still stands out in my memory for how rewarding it felt.