The pace of technology change can only be described as exponential. If you are to keep pace with these advances, it is essential to future proof your software.

What does that mean?

Well, you may have mature, feature rich and stable software solutions – but that’s not enough. They must be future proofed if you are to guarantee the longevity and ongoing success of your solutions.

In simple terms, “future proofing software” means to minimise the negative impact that future events have on your software. The aim of future-proofing an application is to give it longevity by making use of the latest technology to refactor the product over time.

Why Is It Important?

Because your software solutions will remain relevant ensuring that your technology partners will be able to attract young talent who are interested in working with the latest tech, and the technical debt in your software will constantly be reduced. This latter is defined as the implied cost of additional rework caused by choosing an easy or limited solution instead of using a better approach that would take longer to produce.

This will also result in continuous improvement because over time there will be learnings about what was good or bad about a specific component. Thereafter, plans to refactor these components should be devised in a manner that serves to maximise useability.

How do you achieve future-proofing?

Development frameworks, web browsers and operating systems are constantly changing and improving. Making sure software stays as up-to-date as possible with the latest versions is important. Apart from allowing you to use the latest tools, this will also reduce cyber security threats and, as such, improve overall security. New and powerful tools are always being created. It makes sense, over time, for your software development partners to utilise these tools/frameworks to replace older ones in your software. However, it is also vital to ensure the software is not destabilised in any way. So, tackling one component at a time is the best modus operandi. The deletion of old code is equally important during refactoring processes – this also reduces technical debt.

Engage with your customer base

Customers and users are the most important when it comes to future-proofing software. To know where the real strengths and weaknesses lie in software solutions, user feedback is crucial. Powerful software partnerships consist of ongoing customer engagement. This helps solution providers to highlight the weakest components of a system and tackle them first. Over years of providing software solutions, my experience has confirmed that customers are interested in the future of the software they are using, and they will certainly start looking for greener pastures if suppliers do not pay attention to future-proofing.