How the system comes to exist.
WHAT BUYING PROVIDES
Immediate capability Vendor maintenance Practices embedded from many customers No development risk
WHAT IT COSTS
Fitting your process to the software Ongoing fees Dependence on the vendor
WHAT BUILDING PROVIDES
Exactly your process No licence fees Full control
WHAT IT COSTS
Development time and skill Maintenance forever Risk that it is never finished Dependence on whoever built it
WHY BUILDING USUALLY FAILS FOR BUSINESS SYSTEMS
The scope is far larger than it appears, and the maintenance never ends.
WHAT CONFIGURING MEANS
Adapting a bought system without changing its code.
WHAT THAT PRESERVES
Upgradeability.
WHAT CUSTOMISATION MEANS
Changing behaviour beyond configuration.
WHAT IT COSTS
Upgrades becoming difficult or impossible.
WHY THAT IS THE CENTRAL TRAP
Heavily customised systems become unsupportable and are eventually frozen on an old version.
WHAT TO PREFER
Changing process to match the software, where the process is not a genuine advantage.
WHAT TO CUSTOMISE
Only what genuinely differentiates you.
WHAT TO ASK OF EVERY CUSTOMISATION REQUEST
Why can we not work the way the software expects?
