Application Life Cycles And Fates: Differentiate Between Strategic Intent And Tactical Necessities

The application portfolios of large IT organizations are coming under increasing scrutiny as tempting targets for streamlining to increase agility and reduce waste. Applications professionals often seek to assign a label to each application that indicates its medium- to long-term long fate. Forrester has defined "four fates" organizations can assign to an application: leave it as is, modernize it, replace it, and retire it. It's important that, when considering the fates, applications professionals view them as indicators of longer-term strategic intent and avoid confusing them with the day-to-day tactics that may seem out of step with an application's particular fate.