At the beginning of its transformation, DOVISTA didn’t focus on keeping up with software updates from providers. The company’s development environment was too dynamic, and individual elements of the system changed too rapidly.
”During the intense expansion of the system, particularly at the beginning of its existence, updates are often overlooked. Yet, they are crucial for ensuring continuity and stability. The focus is primarily on adding new features, streamlining the existing ones, and meeting business objectives, all while becoming increasingly dependent on the system. If an organization doesn’t realize this in time, it could get into serious trouble when product support ends or system updates become incompatible,” explains Michał Zielinski, Head of Product at ImFactory, who has supported DOVISTA’s projects for years.
However, time doesn’t stand still, needs and capabilities also evolve constantly. The system’s initial versions became outdated, and after massive development, DOVISTA’s environment grew dramatically, expanding multiple times within two years. This made it impossible to further delay the update.
The break between larger projects provided an opportunity to calmly approach the matter, updating AVEVA software to its latest version and reducing the technological debt across all related applications.
The project, initially envisioned as a two-stage update of certain system components, ended in re-writing multiple applications due to the demands of newer versions.
“We now strive to keep technological debt at a manageable level, updating software annually. We aim to apply a similar approach not only to AVEVA products – we’d also like to review our in-house solutions once a year, seeking potential to reduce the debt,” Piotr Bielkiewicz concludes.