Pros
The executive management team has given me cart blanche and the full requisite support to entirely reset the software development organization, which I am currently in the processing of doing. The leadership team and the owners are completely committed to learn from the past, change old practices and behaviors, and make positive forward progress. We have new management (me), a new development team, new ALM processes, and a new strategic direction. I couldn’t be happier and we’re building a great software development organization at MDSi. All new development is “mobile first, cloud first”, cutting edge stuff that conforms to industry best practices. I’ve successfully implemented a new apprentice program, team collaboration is at an all-time high, and by all appearances morale is too. Things are looking great. Onwards and upwards!
Cons
We have a lot of legacy systems to support that carry technical debt, but there really isn’t anything that bad. I’ve seen worse. We’ll have to continue to support the legacy code base until we replace it, but that is now well underway with 75% of our team is 100% focused on new cutting edge stuff.